The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England

THE RULER PORTRAITS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND Catherine E. Karkov Anglo-Saxon Studies

Anglo-Saxon Studies

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THE RULER PORTRAITS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

Between the reign of Alfred in the late ninth century and the arrival of the Normans in 1066, a unique set of images of kingship and queenship was developed in Anglo-Saxon England, images of leadership that centred on books, authorship and learning rather than thrones, sword and sceptres. Focusing on the cultural and historical contexts in which these images were produced, this book explores the reasons for their development, and their meaning and function within both England and early medieval Europe. It explains how and why they differ from their Byzantine and continental counterparts, and what they reveal about Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history and gender, as well as the qualities that were thought to constitute a good ruler. The author argues that this series of portraits, never before studied as a corpus, creates a visual genealogy equivalent to the textual genealogies and regnal lists that are so much a feature of late Anglo-Saxon culture. As such they are an important part of the way in which the kings and queens of early medieval England created both their history and their kingdom. CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professor of Art, Affiliate in the History and Women’s Studies Departments, Miami University.

Anglo-Saxon Studies ISSN 1475–2468

General Editors John Hines Catherine Cubitt

Volume 1: The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England M. Bradford Bedingfield Volume 2: The Art of the Anglo-Saxon Goldsmith: Fine Metalwork in Anglo-Saxon England: its Practice and Practitioners Elizabeth Coatsworth and Michael Pinder

‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’ aims to provide a forum for the best scholarship on the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the period from the end of Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest, including comparative studies involving adjacent populations and periods; both new research and major reassessments of central topics are welcomed. Originally founded by Professor David Dumville as ‘Studies in Anglo-Saxon History’, the series has now broadened in scope under new editorship to take in any one of the principal disciplines of archaeology, art history, history, language and literature, and inter- or multidisciplinary studies are encouraged. Proposals or enquiries may be sent directly to the editors or the publisher at the addresses given below; all submissions will receive prompt and informed consideration. Professor John Hines, School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK CF10 3XU Dr Catherine Cubitt, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, The King’s Manor, York, England, UK YO1 2EP Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, UK IP12 3DF

THE RULER PORTRAITS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

Catherine E. Karkov

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Catherine E. Karkov 2004 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 2004 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 1 84383 059 0

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, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Karkov, Catherine E., 1956– The ruler portraits of Anglo-Saxon England / Catherine E. Karkov. p. cm. – (Anglo-Saxon studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–84383–059–0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Great Britian – History – Anglo Saxon period, 449–1066. 2. Books and reading – England – History – To 1500. 3. Great Britian – Kings and rulers – Portraits. 4. Anglo-Saxons – Kings and rulers – Portraits. 5. Great Britain – Intellectual life – To 1066. 6. Anglo-Saxons – Intellectual life. 7. Authorship – History – To 1500. 8. Portrait painting, English. I. Title. II. Series. DA152.K27 2004 757'.086'21094209021 – dc22 2003024574

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Typeset by Pru Harrison, Hacheston, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Contents List of illustrations

vi

Acknowledgements

vii

Abbreviations

viii

Introduction

1

1

Alfred

23

2

Æthelstan

53

3

Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform

84

4

Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut

119

5

Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England

157

Conclusion

174

Bibliography

177

Index

203

Illustrations Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. Fig. 17. Fig. 18. Fig. 19. Fig. 20. Fig. 21. Fig. 22. Fig. 23. Fig. 24. Fig. 25. Fig. 26. Fig. 27. Fig. 28.

Richard Westall, Queen Judith reciting to Alfred the Great, when a child, the songs of the bards Two Emperors coin of Alfred The Alfred Jewel Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183, fol. 1v, King Æthelstan Crowned Bust coin of Æthelstan British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.iv, fol. 25v, St Matthew British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fol. 2v, King Edgar offers his charter to Christ British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fol. 3r British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fol. 3v British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fol. 4r British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fol. 30r British Library, MS Cotton Galba A.xviii, fol. 120v, Ascension of Christ British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, fol. 2v, King Edgar with Æthelwold and Dunstan British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, fol. 117v, St Benedict Otto III from Aachen Gospels (Aachen, Cathedral Treasury, fol. 16r) Seal of Edith of Wilton British Library, MS Stowe 944, fol. 6, Queen Ælfgifu (Emma) and King Cnut British Library, MS Stowe 944, fol. 6v, Last Judgement British Library, MS Stowe 944, fol. 7, Last Judgement Ivory of Christ crowning Otto II and Theophanu British Library, MS Additional 33241, fol. 1v Sovereign-Martlets coin of Edward the Confessor Seal of Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor enthroned, Bayeux Tapestry Death and funeral of Edward the Confessor, Bayeux Tapestry Coronation of Harold, Bayeux Tapestry Halley’s comet and Harold, Bayeux Tapestry Death of Harold, Bayeux Tapestry

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Acknowledgements I have enjoyed the support and encouragement of a numerous people and institutions in the time that I have been working on this book, but individual thanks are due to Mark Blackburn, Michelle Brown, Gill Cannell, Patrick W. Conner, Carol Farr, Anna Gannon, Michael Hare, Hilda, John Hines, Paul Hyams, Lynn Jones, Sarah Larratt Keefer, Gale Owen-Crocker, Caroline Palmer, Rebecca Rushforth, Bill Schipper and Don Scragg. I am especially grateful to Helen Damico, Martin Foys, Simon Keynes and Patrick Wormald for generously sharing with me their opinions and their work in progress, and for reading various portions of the manuscript. They, of course, are not responsible for any mistakes that remain. I would also like to thank the British Library, the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Centre Guillaume le Conquérant, Aachen Cathedral Treasury, and the Musée Cluny for allowing me access to their material and permission to publish works in their collections, and to the School of Fine Arts, Miami University for a generous grant towards the cost of their reproduction.

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Abbreviations ASE ASPR ASSAH BAR CBA CCSL CSASE EEMF EETS EHD

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History British Archaeological Reports Council for British Archaeology Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile Early English Texts Society English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1955) EHR English Historical Review FS Frühmittelalterliche Studien HBS Henry Bradshaw Society Hist. eccles. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969) JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology Jnl journal MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica SRM: Scriptores rerum merowingicarum OED Oxford English Dictionary PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, ed. J-P. Migne (Paris, 1844–82) Res. Rep. Research Report S P. H. Sawyer, ed., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968) s.a. sub anno

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Introduction For most of its history ‘Anglo-Saxon’ England was not a kingdom but a group of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, the exact number of which fluctuated widely during the seventh and eighth centuries.1 In the year 802, however, Ecgberht (802–39) succeeded to the throne of Wessex and rapidly gained control over much of England south of the Thames. His achievements were consolidated and augmented by his immediate successors, who diligently set about transforming the kingship of the West Saxons into the kingship of the English.2 Unfortunately, no portrait of Ecgberht survives; in fact outside of coinage no image survives from before the tenth century that can without question be described as a ‘portrait’ of a known ruler, and the portraits that do survive on coins are highly formulaic and modelled on Byzantine and continental prototypes.3 Certainly power and leadership were manifested in the material record in a number or ways, but it was only during the reign of Alfred (871–99) that an abiding image of kingship (and also of queenship) would come to be established. In his 1976 paper ‘Christus rex et magi reges: Kingship and Christology in Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon Art’, Robert Deshman stated that ‘there are only three surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts with ruler portraits’.4 For Deshman, a ‘ruler’ was both male and a king, and a ‘portrait’ was a painted image. While it is true that queens and other royal women remain in the background for much of the period covered by this book, there are points at which they emerge from their relative obscurity to play a significant, indeed sometimes prominent role in the unification and governance of England. In this book, therefore, the term ‘ruler’ will be extended to cover both the men and women of the dominant ruling dynasty – for all intents and purposes the West Saxon dynasty. Again, this is not to say that there were not other expressions and images of power; it is simply to 1

For a survey of the early kingdoms, see B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1990). 2 See further J. Campbell, ‘The United Kingdom of England: The Anglo-Saxon Achievement’, in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, ed. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (London, 1995), pp. 31–47; S. Keynes, ‘The Cult of King Alfred’, ASE 28 (1999), 225–356, at 354–6. 3 In a forthcoming paper Rosemary Cramp notes that it is virtually impossible to distinguish images of rulers from images of lay patrons in England before the tenth century, but wonders whether they might, under the influence of coinage, have been represented by heads alone: R. Cramp, ‘The Changing Image, Divine and Human in Anglo-Saxon Art’, in Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp, ed. H. Damico and C. E. Karkov (Kalamazoo, MI, forthcoming). 4 R. Deshman, ‘Christus rex et magi reges: Kingship and Christology in Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon Art’, FS 10 (1976), 367–405, at 367. Deshman was referring to the dedication miniatures in the Lives of Cuthbert (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183), the New Minster Charter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii) and the New Minster Liber Vitae (London, British Library, MS Stowe 944).

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England acknowledge that it was the West Saxons who created the most prominent and enduring image, and the only one that was promoted on a national scale. The term ‘portrait’ will be taken in its figurative sense to mean ‘something that represents, typifies, or resembles something else’.5 A poetic text, a set of laws, the space of a city, patterns of patronage or even the reconstruction of personal reading habits all help to establish narrative portraits of the individuals for whom or by whom they were made.6 Court rituals, important as they may have been for Carolingian and Ottonian images of kingship,7 will unfortunately be of rather less concern because, although the location of some rituals can be documented, the architectural settings, visual details, even the ceremonials used are less well documented. Be that as it may, the image (imago), to paraphrase Hans Belting, provides a moment from a narrative (historia),8 but it should not be mistaken for the narrative itself, and even if we have no clear idea of such things as the plan or decoration of Anglo-Saxon palaces, what might have been involved in an adventus ceremony, whether or not queens were crowned and what their crowns looked like if they were, we can get a sense of the historical contexts, court ethos and political motivations that lie behind each of the portraits. Unfortunately, Deshman was correct in stating that we do have relatively few images of Anglo-Saxon rulers (outside of numismatics), and certainly nothing to rival the impressive number of portraits that remains from the Byzantine, Carolingian or Ottonian worlds. Why this should be so remains an interesting and as yet unanswered question; but, as we shall see, it is likely to have had more to do with concepts of history, genealogy and dynasty than with external influences or competition between kings or countries. The few figural images that do survive in manuscripts and other media will therefore be employed here as starting points in the construction of more detailed, contextual and cultural portraits of the individuals represented. Coins,9 contemporary laws, charters, ordines, chronicles, the archaeological record, and other types of evidence will be used to establish the 5 6

OED. John Lowden emphasises the importance of such an approach when he writes, ‘There is hardly a facet of medieval culture which does not have a strong visual element, and in the study of kings and kingship the visual is of central importance. Through architecture . . . through sumptuary laws, through ceremonial and ritual, through charters, seals, and coins, and in numerous other ways, medieval rulers sought to make the visual work for them by fostering a particular perception of royal or imperial power’ (‘The Royal/Imperial Book and the Image or Self-Image of the Medieval Ruler’, in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. A. J. Duggan [London, 1993], pp. 212–40, at 214). The view that early medieval artists, patrons and audiences were unaware of visual associations and derivations is most certainly a mistaken one (pace D. Bullough, ‘ “Imagines Regum” and their Significance in the Early Medieval West’, in Studies in Memory of David Talbot Rice, ed. G. Robertson and G. Henderson [Edinburgh, 1975], pp. 223–77, at 252–3). 7 See, for example, T. Zotz, ‘Carolingian Tradition and Ottonian-Salian Innovation: Comparative Observations on Palatine Policy in the Empire’, in Kings and Kingship, ed. Duggan, pp. 69–100. But see also P. Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Text and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton, NJ, 2001), esp. ch. 1. 8 H. Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago and London, 1994), p. 10. 9 While coins are important types of ruler portraits there is not scope to give comprehensive coverage to them here, although the major series will naturally be considered. For an in-depth study of the iconography of early Anglo-Saxon coins, with special emphasis on portraiture, see A. Gannon, The Iconograpy of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage: Sixth to Eighth Centuries (Oxford, 2003).

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Introduction larger narratives in which we can locate the images of the men and women that have come down to us. The chapters that follow will explore the chronological development of the ruler portrait in Anglo-Saxon England, from the reign of Alfred to the arrival of the Normans. I have chosen to end with Edward the Confessor and the coming of the Normans not because I believe in the validity of such periodisations as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘Anglo-Norman’, but because the portraiture of Edward’s reign represents the beginning of a new tradition, one centred on the image of the enthroned king. In talking about the portraits of Edward and his predecessors, I also use the word ‘development’ quite deliberately as it is abundantly clear that the portraits of tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon kings and queens are aware of their own historicity, the ways in which they reference and add new meanings to the images which precede them. Within this development the figure of Alfred serves as something of a mirror. Alfred positions himself as a Janus-like figure gazing back toward the past of the Angles and the Saxons and the origins of the English church, and forward toward the future of the English church and state. As has been noted frequently, Alfred’s reign is also quite literally a turning point; it is the point at which we first begin to see the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms coming together – or being imagined as coming together – into what would eventually become the English nation.

THE MANUSCRIPT PORTRAITS

There are in fact five surviving ruler portraits in manuscripts made by or for the Anglo-Saxons, and a further dozen or so portraits or possible portraits in other media.10 Because the manuscript images are unambiguously portraits, because they survive in excellent condition, and most importantly because they are not isolated monuments, but form a coherent set of images which documents the transformation of kings and queens from rulers of a sub-kingdom (Wessex) into rulers of a ‘united kingdom’ (England), they will form the heart of this book, 10

The Alfred Jewel, the seal of Edward the Confessor, the portraits of Edward, Edith and Harold (and also William) in the Bayeux Tapestry, and the possible portraits of Queen Æthelburga of Lyminge (wife of King Edwin) on the Hackness ‘cross’ (see C. E. Karkov, ‘Naming and Renaming: The Inscription of Gender in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Theorizing Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, ed. C. E. Karkov and F. Orton [Morgantown, WV, 2003], pp. 31–64, at pp. 56–64; C. Farr, ‘Questioning the Monuments: Approaches to Anglo-Saxon Sculpture through Gender Studies’, in The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England: Basic Readings, ed. C. E. Karkov [New York, 1999], pp. 375–402; J. Lang, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, vol. 3, York and Eastern Yorkshire [Oxford, 1991], pp. 135–40), Alcfrith, subking of Deira on the Bewcastle ‘cross’ (see Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, vol. 2, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands, ed. R. N. Bailey and R. Cramp [Oxford, 1988], pp. 61–72; C. E. Karkov, ‘The Bewcastle Cross: Some Iconographic Problems’, in The Insular Tradition, ed. C. E. Karkov, M. Ryan and R. T. Farrell [Albany, NY,1997], pp. 9–26), and Æthelbald, King of Mercia, on the Repton stone (see M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘The Repton Stone’, ASE 14 [1985], 233–92). Possible portraits of rulers (or perhaps simply lay patrons) also survive at Glastonbury (R. Cramp ‘Pre-Conquest Sculptures of Glastonbury Monastery’, in New Offerings. Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. P. Binski and W. Noel [Stroud, 2001], pp. 154–61) and at Breedon (R. H. Jewell, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Friezes at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire’, Archaeologia 108 [1986], 95–115).

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England although due consideration will be given to the other types of evidence. The surviving manuscript portraits in chronological order are: (1) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183, folio 1v (Æthelstan presenting Cuthbert with the book; fig. 4) (2) London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, folio 2v (Edgar presenting the New Minster Charter to Christ; fig. 7) (3) London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, folio 2v (Edgar with SS Dunstan and Æthelwold; fig. 13) (4) London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, folio 6 (Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut presenting an altar cross to the New Minster, Winchester; fig. 17) (5) London, British Library, MS Add. 33241, folio 1v (Emma enthroned receiving her book; fig. 21) As previously noted, these five portraits are united to each other and distinguished from contemporary continental portraits above all by the recurring motif of the book, a motif that first becomes prominent in Asser’s verbal portrait of the young Alfred, and in the portrait of king as author that Alfred creates for himself. Continental kings, as Janet Nelson has noted, were not authors in the way that Alfred was,11 nor did they have themselves depicted as involved in the production of texts, as Edgar was to do during the period of the monastic reform, or Emma was to do after the death of Cnut.12 Carolingian, Ottonian and Salian rulers were certainly patrons of books,13 were shown receiving them, and were concerned with both education and the production of texts; but in portraiture they usually appear enthroned, receiving crowns, or otherwise displaying attributes of imperial power – in addition to any book which they might be receiving. Uncompromising majesty is almost always the primary message, whatever concern with piety or patronage might also have been a part of the picture. In Anglo-Saxon art, on the other hand, rulers are depicted as donors, recipients, even co-authors of texts, or in scenes that stress piety over (or at least in careful balance with) secular power. The portraits are also found in different types of manuscripts, with the Anglo-Saxons tending not to include portraits in the grand liturgical books favoured by the Carolingians and Ottonians – at least not as far as we can judge from the surviving evidence. The earliest Anglo-Saxon manuscript portrait to survive is that of Æthelstan presenting St Cuthbert with a copy of Bede’s Lives of St Cuthbert in verse and prose (fig. 4). London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.ix, a late ninth or early tenth-century gospel book written in Brittany, originally contained a second portrait depicting the king presenting Cuthbert with a gospel book, but that portrait, along with most of the manuscript, was destroyed in the Cotton fire of 1731. In Æethelstan’s choice of Cuthbert as the recipient of his patronage both portraits looked back to the golden age of Bede, and suggested visually the same 11

J. L. Nelson, ‘The Political Ideas of Alfred of Wessex’, in Kings and Kingship, ed. Duggan, pp. 125–58, at 126. 12 See below, chs. 3 and 4. 13 See especially R. McKitterick, ‘Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library: The Patronage of Learning’, EHR 95 (1980), 28–47.

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Introduction interest in the revival of learning and strong royal support for the English church that characterise the writings of Æthelstan’s grandfather, Alfred. Both manuscripts also included texts which indicate that, just like Alfred, Æthelstan was aware of the power of the book and its texts in defining the limits of his kingdom. An even greater concern with revival (and reform) is evident in the portraits of and manuscripts associated with Edgar, and no king is as closely identified with books and learning in the material record of Anglo-Saxon England. The two portraits of Edgar that survive show him in command of texts: Cotton Vespasian A.viii, folio 2v (the New Minster Charter; fig. 7), and Cotton Tiberius A.iii (a copy of the Regularis Concordia; fig. 13). Both build on the iconography of pious kingship and generous patronage established in the Æthelstan portrait, however they go on to suggest that Edgar is not only a patron but also a co-author of the reform. Edgar’s is the authorial voice of the charter, as its opening lines make clear, while the fact that he holds the scroll jointly with Dunstan and Æthelwold in the Tiberius Aiii portrait implies that he is also an ‘author’ of the text of the Regularis Concordia that follows. Neither Ælfgifu/Emma, nor Cnut hold books in the donor portrait in British Library, MS Stowe 944 (fig. 17), the Liber Vitae of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, but the page is in many respects all about the book. The artist has depicted the royal couple at the opening of the manuscript positioned between this earthly volume, symbolised by the book held by the monk at the bottom of the page, and the heavenly Book of Life held by Christ at the top of the page. Moreover, as will be shown below, it is the figures of the queen and king that unite the present moment, represented in the picture, to the abbey’s past, documented in the texts collected in the manuscript, and to its hopes for the future. Hopes for the future are also an important part of the last surviving contemporary drawing of an Anglo-Saxon ruler, the portrait of Emma in the Encomium Emmae Reginae (British Library, MS Additional 33241, fol. 1v; fig. 21). Here the enthroned Emma receives the book from the scribe, while her two sons, Harthacnut and Edward look on from the background. Both the portrait and the book of which it is a part express Emma’s idealised view of her late husband’s reign and her even more idealistic hopes for a peaceful England governed jointly by herself and her two sons – and by herself and Edward after Harthacnut’s death.14 As in the narrative portrait of Alfred discussed below, the queen is depicted holding the book, in this case a book of Anglo-Saxon history, while one son, presumably the favoured Harthacnut, reaches out to touch it, just as Alfred strove to share the book held in his mother’s hand. In Emma’s case, however, peaceful rule of a unified kingdom was something destined to exist only within the fictions of the text. It is thus around learning, wisdom and devotion, manifested in the production, patronage and representation of texts, that the visual image of Anglo-Saxon governance will revolve. This is a pronounced break with the Roman tradition of imperial portraiture; nevertheless, as Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits do reveal the 14

On the ending of the Encomium Emmae see A. Orchard, ‘The Literary Background to the Encomium Emmae Reginae’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 11 (2001), 156–83, esp. p. 167.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England influence of Roman, Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian art, a brief survey of the primary characteristics of the ruler portraits produced by each of these cultures is in order. Such a survey must of necessity be both brief and selective, and must focus primarily on those elements of the tradition that will prove relevant to the art of the Anglo-Saxons. For a more extensive discussion the reader is directed to the various sources cited below. Specific influences, parallels, and important points of difference will be documented in the chapters that follow.

THE VISUAL TRADITION

Roman imperial portraiture is probably the single most important source for early medieval ruler portraits. Early medieval kings copied imperial portraits not only for their iconography of authority, but also as a way of suggesting that they were both politically and theologically the heirs to the late antique/early Christian tradition. However, the rulers of the different cultures that made up early medieval Europe, did choose to emphasise different elements of the Roman tradition, at the same time that they built on the images created by their predecessors. Specific examples of the artwork of the various periods are discussed below, but to summarise the basic steps in the development: (1) The Roman imperial portraits were concerned with individuality, the unique features that distinguished one ruler from another. But they were also designed to establish the commanding military presence and divine nature of successive rulers. (2) During the fifth through seventh centuries, early Christian and Byzantine rulers adapted this image to the new culture of Christianity. Emperors were still strong military leaders, but they also modelled themselves on biblical images of piety; they were like Christ and wished to live with Christ in eternity, but they were no longer literally divine. Individuality also gave way to an ideal ruler ‘type’. Depicting physical likeness was not as important as depicting right to rule, something that could be portrayed most clearly by the assimilation of individual kings and queens into idealised and traditional images of office. (3) Carolingian and Ottonian ruler portraits of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries developed alongside those of the middle Byzantine period and were certainly influenced by developments in Byzantine art – and this is most obviously and deliberately the case in Ottonian art. The portraits of both cultures were particularly concerned with biblical, especially Davidic, models of kingship, and the image of the king as not just a strong military leader, but as a miles Christi became popular. While Byzantine emperors could claim direct political descent from the Roman Empire, the Carolingians and Ottonians could not; nevertheless they were the rulers of the new Holy Roman Empire, and did copy Roman regalia, gestures, even types of monument as a way of indicating that they too were the heirs of Rome. It was on small-scale objects, particularly coins, medallions, and ivory 6

Introduction diptychs that imperial imagery was transferred to the early medieval West,15 although three-dimensional sculpture and painting did have a role to play, and there are also specific elements of style, composition and the location of works to be considered. To flesh out the developments summarised above, let us return to the Romans. Roman imperial portraits are generally naturalistic, individualised and publicly oriented. Naturally Roman art changed dramatically between the age of Augustus and that of Constantine,16 but the need to express the individuality and particular agenda of each successive emperor did not. The famous colossal statue of Constantine made for the apse of the Basilica Nova of Maxentius and Constantine c. 325 is abstract, and has neither the sense of motion nor the naturalistic detail of the Augustus of the Primaporta (made in the late first century BC, probably for the garden of the Villa of Livia), but both are immediately recognisable as portraits of the respective emperors, both were produced with a public audience in mind, and both were site-specific – that is to say that they were meant to relate to and be seen in the specific settings for which they were made. By the late fourth century this tradition had begun to change; it can for example be very difficult to differentiate one Theodosian emperor from another without the aid of inscriptions. In Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon art, by contrast, individuality seems to have been positively shunned in favour of a sameness that helped to create and convey a sense of dynastic or spiritual community and/or heritage – although the Ottonians would certainly embrace late antique monumentality in their manuscript portraits. Portraits of Otto III look very much like those of Otto II (aside from an increasingly hieratic scale) not only because Otto III was the heir to Otto II but also because he was carrying on the traditions established by his predecessor. Similarly, Cnut in the New Minster Liber Vitae (fig. 17) looks very like Edgar in the New Minster Charter (fig. 7) because it was desirable to create a link between the two books as well as the two kings.17 In Roman art and much of early Christian art similar associations and historical references were made through the use of spolia or the recarving or repainting of works. Sculpture from monuments of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius was incorporated into the arch of Constantine in Rome (erected 312–315), but many of the heads of the earlier emperors were re-carved in the likeness of Constantine. In this way Constantine could suggest that his reign would be as great as those of his predecessors while retaining his own recognisable image. When Otto III put a cameo of Augustus on the front of the Lothar cross, 18 on the other hand, he 15

On the texts of consular diptychs and their influence and re-use in the early Christian world see K. Bowes, ‘Ivory Lists: Consular Diptychs, Christian Appropriation and Polemics of Time in Late Antiquity’, Art History 24.3 (2001), 338–57. 16 For an excellent discussion of the transition from imperial Roman to early Christian art, see J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge, 1995), esp. ch. 5; J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450 (Oxford, 1998). 17 See below, ch. 4. 18 For a discussion of the cross see H. Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Illumination: An Historical Survey, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1991), I, 135–8.

7

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England probably intended it not only as a bit of romanitas, but also as a sign of both himself as emperor and of Christ as King of heaven. For Otto, as for all early medieval kings, personal likeness as a sign of the individual self was not important, what mattered was what the cameo stood for rather than what it represented literally, and the way in which it served to unite Roman concepts of empire with those of the Ottonians. Just as medieval rulers such as Alfred identified themselves with Christ as King, so Roman rulers identified themselves with the gods, but here there is an important difference between the ages of Augustus and Constantine. Augustus was both mortal and a god, and the idealised features, larger-than-life scale, and laurel wreath of the Augustus of the Primaporta are all indicative of his deification. Constantine, on the other hand, may have seen himself as the thirteenth apostle, but he did not see himself as equal to Christ. The increased size and abstract features of his portraits convey his exalted position within the social and political hierarchy, but he is neither god nor God. Yet it is with Constantine that the typological relationship between the earthly and heavenly courts begins. Constantine and his mother Helena became the earthly mirrors of Christ and Mary, and thus important role models for kings and queens for centuries to come. However, this was a relationship established not so much through changes in the way that the emperor and his mother were represented, but through endowing images of Christ and Mary with imperial attributes – as well as through patterns of patronage and the documentary record. Peter, for example, the rock on whom Christ had built his church, became quite literally the rock on which Constantine built the basilica of St Peter’s, Rome, and the inscription which he placed on the golden cross surmounting the shrine of St Peter made the parallel between his own court and that of Christ quite clear: ‘Constantine Augustus and Helena Augusta beautify with gold this royal house which a court, shining with like splendour, surrounds.’19 Beginning with Constantine the emperor (or king) became Christ’s representative on earth. The Christian emperors who came after Constantine in both the Byzantine East and Roman West continued to use many of the portrait types made popular in his day as a way of demonstrating their dynastic and religious descent from the first Christian emperor. Colossal statues, imagines clipeatae, and clean-shaven faces all remained popular, as did equestrian statues, though none survives. The famous Barbarini ivory (Musée du Louvre, Paris) from the second quarter of the sixth century depicts a clean-shaven emperor, usually identified as Justinian, on horseback with a personification of the earth beneath him and a bust of Christ, with features very like those of the emperor, in a pose of blessing in the top panel. The iconography is traditional, but the lack of detail in the setting marks a change. This is an abstract, timeless setting in which naturalistic space, proportion and composition have given way to the symbolic. The emperor’s triumph,20 like 19

The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis) to the Pontificate of Gregory I, ed. L. R. Loomis (New York, 1965), p. 54 n. 3. 20 The iconography of the ivory indicates that it commemorates a military triumph, perhaps the institution of peace with Persia.

8

Introduction Christ’s, takes place eternally, and the schematic composition and geometric order of the panels which make up the ivory mirror divine order. The image has a two-dimensional equivalent in the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora in the church of S. Vitale, Ravenna, where the emperor and empress are shown bearing their gifts to Christ in a liturgical procession located both within this specific church and against a sacred and eternal golden background. One of the most important innovations of Byzantine ruler portraits was the development of a composition in which the emperor or imperial couple was not simply blessed by Christ or Mary, but actually crowned by them. The imagery first appears in the reign of Basil I (867–66),21 but the ultimate source of the image may lie not in art, but in a new conception of the office of emperor. In the seventh century the Byzantine emperors adopted the title basileus (‘king’) or basileus pistis (‘faithful king’) in addition to the traditional Roman title autokrator, as an expression of their relationship to Christ and the biblical kings, particularly King David.22 David also began to appear with the attributes of the Byzantine emperor, as he does in the Paris Psalter of c. 950–70 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Gr. 139, fol. 70). An ivory panel of c. 945 depicting Christ crowning Constantine VII is inscribed ‘Constantine through God the autokrator and the basileus of the Romans’,23 while the open book held by David in the Paris Psalter is inscribed with the opening of Psalm 71: ‘Give the king [basileus] thy judgements, O God and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.’ The Psalter may have been made for Constantine’s son, Romanos II. An ivory of similar date shows Romanos II and his wife Eudokia crowned by Christ, and is clearly modelled on the ivory portrait of his father.24 It is generally thought to have been made to commemorate the couple’s coronation on Easter day 945. Romanos II was six years old at the time, and his bride only four, though both are depicted as adults with traditional imperial dress and regalia.25 This was, as are most all early medieval ruler portraits, a portrait of imperial hopes and ambitions rather than realities. Eudokia, a daughter of Hugh of Provence,26 died in 949 at the age of eight, but it is probably not coincidental that it was just at this time that Byzantine art was exerting a particularly powerful influence on the art of the West, especially on Ottonian art. Panels like these were produced as diplomatic gifts, and similar sets of images circulated on coins and, as noted above, it is most probably in this form 21 22

23 24

25

26

The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261, ed. H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom (New York, 1997), p. 204. T. F. Mathews, Byzantium from Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York, 1998), p. 37. Mathews notes that the change corresponded to changes within the imperial coronation ceremony. The first emperor to adopt the new title was Heraclius in 629. Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow (II 2 b 329). For an illustration of the ivory see Glory of Byzantium, ed. Evans and Wixom, cat. no. 140. It is generally agreed that the couple is Romanos II and his wife Eudokia, although they have sometimes been identified as Romanos IV (1068–71) and his wife, also named Eudokia. For an illustration of the ivory, see Glory of Byzantium, ed. Evans and Wixom, p. 337. Byzantine emperors and empresses were required to be models of physical perfection and unshakeable power, while costumes and regalia were signs of both their status and their virtue. This is one of the reasons that Byzantine rulers appear both static and iconic in relation to their western counterparts. Originally named Bertha, she was given the official name Eudokia at the time of her marriage.

9

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England that they became familiar at western courts. This particular composition was copied numerous times in Ottonian art, as well as in the portrait of Ælfgifu and Cnut in the New Minster Liber Vitae (fig. 17). The ivory panel showing Christ crowning Otto II and Theophanu (fig. 20) from 982–3, probably a southern Italian piece, combines the now conventional Byzantine portrait type with typical western details such as the parted curtains and the tiny figure of the donor beneath Otto’s feet.27 There is also an important difference in the function of the ivories: the panel depicting Otto II and Theophanu was most likely intended as a bookcover, while the Byzantine panels were meant to be used as objects of veneration. The haloes and poses of Romanos and Eudokia, and the fact that they not only share the same space with Christ but are equal to him in size, indicate that they are mediators for their subjects with Christ. Their bodies and eyes confront the viewer and direct his or her prayers to Christ. Patterns of wear on the ivory indicate that it was indeed used as an object for prayer and meditation; the faces of the imperial couple are worn as if rubbed by the thumbs of those who held the panel, while the even greater wear on the face of Christ may be due to the kisses of the faithful.28 Images of rulers in the early medieval west rarely, if ever, demanded this degree of veneration. Objects such as the now lost seal ring from the ‘grave of Childeric’ (d. 481),29 carved with a portrait bust and inscribed CHILDERICI REGIS, or the medallion of Theodoric (493–526) now in the Museo Nazionale in Rome, indicate that Roman imperial iconography survived in the post-Roman West. Coins and portable objects such as brooches or ivory consular diptychs were the media by which most of this imagery would have circulated, and they were most influential on the production of similar objects such as coins, jewellery or bracteates. There are also records, however, of more monumental works like the equestrian statue, or the mosaic images of Theodoric in triumph from his palaces in Ravenna and Pavia, which must likewise have had their influence. Imperial ceremonies were also preserved or deliberately resurrected by the kings of the Franks, Langobards and Visigoths.30 Perhaps most tellingly, Clovis, the first Christian Frankish king, is not only said to have been converted to Christianity after a victory in battle, as was Constantine, but may also have been imitating the first Christian emperor when he had himself buried in the church of the Holy Apostles in Paris.31 Clovis 27

28 29

30 31

The figure is usually identified as John Philagathos of Calabria, Otto’s chancellor in Italy. The inscription above Christ’s head asks the Lord to protect ‘your servant the monk[?] John’ (Glory of Byzantium, ed. Evans and Wixom, p. 499). See further A. Cutler, The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory and Society in Byzantium (9th–11th Centuries) (Princeton, 1994), pp. 29–30. It is unclear whether the grave in which the ring was found was the king’s own grave, or that of someone to whom he had presented the ring as a gift. For an illuminating discussion of the grave, its excavation, and its impact on modern scholarship, see B. Effros, Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 2003), pp. 28–35. See the essays, particularly that of Ian Wood, in The Transformation of the Roman World AD 400–900, ed. L. Webster and M. Brown (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1997). Constantine’s sarcophagus was originally placed in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. On Clovis, see Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum (= Gregorii episcopie Turonensis Historiarum Libri X), ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, MGH, SRM 1, 1 (Hanover, 1937–51), II, 29–31 and 43.

10

Introduction in turn became a model for later Frankish kings. The interest of his Carolingain successors in classical Roman culture is well-known, but the earliest of the Carolingian kings, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, promoted an image of kingship distinctly different from that of the Byzantine emperors. As Janet Nelson has emphasised, Charlemagne never used the title ‘emperor of the Romans’ despite the inscription renovatio romani imperii on his seal. (Louis’ seal was inscribed renovatio regni francorum.)32 Charlemagne’s renovatio, like the Alfredian revival, focused on books and education. His biographer Einhard, records that he kept booklets and tablets under his pillow, and Asser’s account of Alfred’s fondness for books clearly owes more than a little to Einhard’s life of Charlemagne. While Charlemagne’s educational concerns are evident in his reform of manuscript production and script, they are not quite as obvious in surviving Carolingian ruler portraits. Carolingian emperors are depicted receiving books to be sure, but the image of the book does not play nearly as central a role in these portraits as it does in the Anglo-Saxon ones. While Carolingian rulers are shown being presented with texts, surviving contemporary illustrations do not show them holding or presenting books in the manner of Æthelstan, Edgar, or Emma, and there is nothing to compare with the portrayal of Edgar as author or co-author that we find in the frontispieces to the New Minster Charter (fig. 7) or the Regularis Concordia (fig. 13). This is not to say, however, that we do not get some complex relationships between image and text in the Carolingian world. One of the most copied and influential of all early medieval ruler portraits was the image of Louis the Pious created c. 840 for Hrabanus Maurus’s De Laudibus S Crucis (Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 124, fol. 4v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 2423, fol. 1v; Amiens, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 223, fol. 3v; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, MS K II.20, fol. 5v).33 Louis’s is the earliest surviving portrait of a contemporary ruler in western manuscript illumination, and the first image of a contemporary ruler in the work of a contemporary author. Louis is shown as a miles Christi, an image that would have had contemporary relevance to his struggle against the Muslims in Spain (as well as to his problems with his own sons), and one which may well have resonated with the story of Clovis and his battle against the Alamans that became part of the origin legend of Frankish Christian kingship.34 On the other hand, Louis’ dress and pose are those of a late antique general or emperor, and the composition is based on the carmina figurata of Constantine’s court poet, Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius.35 32

J. L. Nelson, ‘Kingship and Empire in the Carolingian World’, in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 52–87, at 70–1. 33 All four of these manuscripts are thought to have been produced under Hrabanus’s direction. See E. Sears, ‘Louis the Pious as Miles Christi: The Dedicatory Image in Hrabanus Maurus’s De Laudibus sanctae crucis’, in Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), ed. P. Godman and R. Collins (Oxford, 1990), pp. 605–28, at 612. 34 Two Christian emperors, possibly to be identified as Charlemagne and Louis, also appeared as milites Christi on the now lost ‘Arch of Einhard’, a silver base for an altar cross. See Bullough, ‘Imagines Regum’, pp. 249–50. 35 The inscription on Louis’ cross reads ‘On the cross, Christ, your victory and true salvation, you rule all things properly’; the inscription on his shield reads ‘For the shield of faith wards off the wicked weapons

11

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Despite Louis’ dress and the classical influences evident in his portraits, the image of the Carolingian emperor did not have the same iconic status it enjoyed in Byzantium. Charlemagne’s Libri Carolini, was directed against the eastern notion that religious icons were sacred (as opposed to didactic or mnemonic), but its message was applicable to secular images as well.36 Even so, the Carolingians were also eager to stress the deeply religious nature of their rule and its biblical origins. Alcuin gave Charlemagne the name David, and his successors continued to develop the biblical analogy. Charles the Bald is linked with David in the verses beneath his double-page portrait in the 870 Codex Aureus of St Emmeram (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm. 14000, fols. 5v–6r), as well as in the poems of the 845–6 Vivian Bible (also known as the First Bible of Charles the Bald; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1).37 In the latter manuscript the portrait of David that prefaces the psalms shows him with the crown and features of Charles, while the frame of the poem on folio 1v includes portrait medallions of DAVID REX IMPERATOR+ and KAROLUS REX FRANCO. The same crown and features appear in the portrait of Charles’s half-brother, Lothar, in the frontispiece to the Lothar Gospels of 849–51 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 266, fol. 1v), one of the most elegant of all the Carolingian manuscripts. One should also note here that both these manuscripts make lavish use of gold and purple in direct emulation of the purple manuscripts of the Byzantine court, and that the portraits of the enthroned rulers are again based on those found in late Roman art; but they also convey a new sense of the ruler as a servant of Christ.38 In the Codex Aureus portrait Charles is shown enthroned and blessed (not crowned) by the hand of God,39 and accompanied by guardian angels, a military bodyguard and personifications of Francia and Gothia, but his eyes are on the apocalyptic vision of the Agnus Dei on the facing page. The verses beneath the lamb state that Charles views its revelation and prays to live with it in eternity. Unlike the portraits of Justinian at S. Vitale, or Romanos II crowned by Christ, and unlike Carolingian images of Christ, the emperor does not look out at us; he neither confronts us, nor does he mediate between us and God.40 He is,

36

37

38

39

40

and protects the emperor, preparing a splendid triumph. May the devout heart reliant on God’s gifts unharmed always put the enemy’s camp to rout’; and that in his nimbus reads ‘You Christ crown Louis.’ For a discussion of the image of Louis in the various copies of the text see Sears, ‘Louis the Pious’. As noted by Bullough, ‘Imagines Regum’, p. 224. For the text of the Libri Carolini see Libri Carolini sivi Caroli Magni capitulare de imaginibus, ed. H. Bastgen, MGH, Concilia, ii. suppl. (Hanover-Leipzig, 1924), pp. 133–6. A new edition of the Libri Carolini is being prepared by Thomas F. X. Noble. In the manuscript’s final poem Charles is called both ‘sanctissime David’ and ‘Caesar’. See P. E. Dutton and H. L. Kessler, The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald (Ann Arbor, MI, 1997), p. 118. Lothar faces a dedicatory poem that ends with the lines: ‘On that account the king is also depicted on this facing page, that whosoever at any time shall look upon the face of the Emperor here may say as a humble petitioner, Praise to Almighty God; may Lothar be worthy to receive eternal rest through our Lord Christ who reigns everywhere’ (J. Lowden, ‘Royal/Imperial Book’, p. 222). Although the portrait of a Carolingian ruler (possibly Charles) in a c. 869–70 sacramentary from the Court School of Charles the Bald (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1141, fol. 2) is crowned by God, the fact that the figure is also haloed suggests that he may be receiving a heavenly rather than an earthly crown. This same distinction is made in the Carolingian ordines. See the ordo of Charles the Bald in R. A. Jackson, ed., Ordines Coronationis Franciae (Philadelphia, PA, 1995), I, 97–109.

12

Introduction moreover, shown in the midst of a vision, a private religious moment (admittedly set within the public space of the church), and seemingly unaware of the attributes of majesty that surround him. A similar combination of personal religious vision with attributes of public secular power characterises the double-page portrait of Charles the Bald on folios 38v–39r of his private prayerbook made between 842 and 869. In this image, the prominently crowned Charles is shown in proskynesis (humble prostration) before the Crucifixion, the king’s hand breaching the space between the human and the divine, while his subservient pose demonstrates quite clearly that he is the servant of Christ. The opening introduces a prayer to Christ on the cross, the Oratio ad adorandam sanctam crucem. In both the painted portrait and the book as a whole, Charles is simultaneously exalted and humbled,41 as is Alfred in Asser’s Vita Alfredi, and it is important to remember that both books were intended first and foremost for the eyes of the king.42 Charles’s public image was rather more imperial. It is perhaps relevant to note here that some of the earliest portraits of rulers in legal manuscripts may be datable to the reign of Charles the Bald. The portrait of a Carolingian ruler in a tenth-century capitulary collection from Metz (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 9654, fol. A) is thought to be based on a ninth-century original.43 It has in fact been suggested that ruler portraits may have appeared first in the illumination of legal texts,44 the example cited most frequently being the early ninth-century Breviary of Alaric with its frontispiece depicting Theodosius, Valentinian, Marcian and Majorian (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 4404, fols. 1v–2). Lacking original legal texts with portraits of contemporary emperors from Charles’s reign it is clearly impossible to push this argument very far in any one direction, but it may well be significant that the portrait of Charles in his psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat.1152, fol. 3v) is accompanied by a poem comparing him to the great law-givers Josiah and Theodosius.45 Whatever the truth may be as regards the 41

42

43

44

45

R. Deshman, ‘The Exalted Servant: The Ruler Theology of the Prayerbook of Charles the Bald’, Viator 11 (1980), 385–417; L. Nees, A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court (Philadelphia, PA, 1991), p. 263. Although it has been suggested that Asser was writing primarily for a Welsh audience (see below, p. 43), the vita is dedicated to Alfred himself, suggesting that the king would have received a copy, if not the first copy. See P. E. Schramm, Die deutschen Kaiser und Könige in Bildern ihrer Zeit 751–1190, revised by Florentine Mütherich (Munich, 1983), no. 45; Nees, Tainted Mantle, p. 241. See also, Schramm, Kaiser und Könige, no. 9: Modena, Archivio Capitalare Ord. I, 2, fol. 156r (an Italian manuscript dated 991), and H. Mordek, ‘Frümittelalterliche Gesetzgeber und Iustitia in Miniaturen weltlicher Rechthandschriften’, in La Giustizia nell’alto Medioevo, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo 42 (Spoleto, 1995), pp. 997–1091, pl. xxiv: Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Membr. I, 84, fol. 149v (an early eleventh-century manuscript from Mainz); see also ibid., pls. xxxii–xxxviii for illustrations of the Modena manuscript. See W. Koehler, Die Karolingischen Miniaturen, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1963), I, 229–31; Dutton and Kessler, Poetry and Paintings, p. 72. The 972 marriage charter of the Ottonian Empress Theophanu (Wolfenbüttel, Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, MS 6 Urk 11) is thought to be based on earlier richly decorated Byzantine charters, but again none survives. See H. Hoffmann, Buchkunst und Königtum im ottonisch und frühsalischen Reich, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1986), pp. 103–16, esp. pp. 113 and 116; H. Westermann-Angerhausen, ‘Did Theophano Leave her Mark on the Ottonian Sumptuary Arts?’ in The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium, ed. A. Davids (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 244–64, esp. pp. 246–8. J. L. Nelson, ‘Translating Images of Authority: The Christian Roman Emperors in the Carolingian

13

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England legal texts, the surviving portraits of Charles the Bald show that kingship in the Carolingian world was God-given, and that the king was a mediator for his church and people, but not for humanity and the divine. While these same images had a profound impact on both Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon art, the Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon responses to them were very different. Alfred’s father, Æthelwulf, took Charles the Bald’s daughter, Judith, as his second wife in 856, thereby uniting the two dynasties, if only briefly. The Ottonians and Salians, for all the bravado of their ruler portraits, desperately sought this type of imperial legitimacy. Henry I (elected king in 919) was the founder of a new dynasty, and he and his successors needed the recognition and authentication that alliances with more established courts could bring. In England, Æthelstan, king of the Mercians in 924, king of the Anglo-Saxons from 925, king of the English from 927,46 and self-styled anglorum basyleos et curagulus totius Bryttannie,47 was rapidly consolidating his power – as reflected by his successive titles. Henry sought and was given Æthelstan’s half-sister, Edith as a bride for his son Otto I in 929. In his turn, Otto I sought an even more prestigious Byzantine princess for his son Otto II, and received Theophanu, niece of the usurping emperor John Tsimisces (but not a purple-born princess) in 972, while Conrad II, the first of the Salian kings, married Gisela, a descendant of Charlemagne. Even without the marriages, the Ottonian quest for imperial status and desire to establish themselves as heirs to both Constantine and Charlemagne is enough to alert us to the likelihood of their adopting imperial styles and themes in their art. There is also the matter of Otto’s coronation, which took place in Charlemagne’s capital of Aachen, and for which Otto adopted Frankish dress and had himself ordained by Hildibert of Metz, a bishop of Frankish origins.48 As would be the case with Conrad II, an unequivocal statement of his political descent from Charlemagne was as vital to Otto’s royal agenda as the links he sought to establish with Byzantium and Rome. Although the seal of Otto I survives,49 it is with Otto II that the image of the Ottonian emperor takes its place in art, and, as the ivory coronation plaque discussed above suggests, it is based heavily on the images of Byzantine and Carolingian rulers. It is also with the Ottonians, and specifically with Theophanu, that the image of the queen takes on a renewed importance. Images of Carolingian queens are rare indeed,50 but

46 47

48 49 50

World’, in Images of Authority: Papers Presented to Joyce Reynolds on the Occasion of her Seventieth Birthday, ed. M. M. MacKenzie and C. Roueché, Cambridge Philological Society Sup. Vol. 16 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 194–205, at p. 199. Æthelstan adopted this title after receiving the submission of the Welsh, Scots, Northumbrians and Strathclyde Britons at Eamont in July 927. A title first adopted in Æthelstan’s charters in 934/5, and also found in the inscription in an Ottonian gospel-book given by Æthelstan to Christ Church, Canterbury (London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.ii). See 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 149; Keynes, ‘The Charters of King Æthelstan and the Kingship of the English’, Toller Lecture, 2001 (Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, forthcoming). The title cited here is but one example of a more exalted notion of kingship that first appears in Æthelstan’s charters in 927 (ibid.). Zotz, ‘Carolingian Tradition’, p. 87. Munich, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv. Exceptions are Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious, whose portrait prefaces Hrabanus Maurus’s

14

Introduction Theophanu, Kunigunde, Agnes and Gisela all appear alongside their husbands or sons in Ottonian art,51 and it is very probably via Ottonian art that the double-ruler portrait became fashionable in the West. Henry Mayr-Harting and Karl Leyser have argued that Ottonian kingship was sacral in a way that Carolingian kingship was not, and that this is reflected in the portraits of their kings and queens,52 but that may not be entirely accurate. It is certainly true that the Ottonians united some of the most dramatic and significant aspects of Carolingian and Byzantine art and ritual to create a more powerful, larger than life, image of the king than that found in Carolingian art, but that image differed from its sources only in degree and not in its essentials. Otto III may have styled himself servus Jesu Christi in his charters, but Charles the Bald had already shown himself to be just that in the double-page portrait in his prayerbook, an image which is likely to have influenced the portrait of Otto in his own prayerbook (Pommersfelden, Graf von Schornborn’sche Schlossbibliothek, MS 347, fols. 20v–21). In the latter manuscript Otto III kneels before Christ in Majesty, rather than the Christ of the Crucifixion, but he also kneels without a crown. The gulf between Otto and Christ is thus made wider than that between Charles and Christ; on the other hand, one should note that Otto also approaches Christ the divine and eternal judge, whereas Charles approaches the human Christ on the cross. The ambivalence created in this opening is typical of much of Ottonian art. The prayerbook was most probably a private manuscript, and Otto’s appearance in grander and more public manuscripts is somewhat less humble. In the Aachen Gospels (Aachen, Cathedral Treasury, fol. 16) made in Reichenau c. 996, he is shown enthroned and surrounded by the symbols of the evangelists, adored by personifications of the realm, and crowned by an enormous hand of God, but the portrait is again a mixture of borrowings from Carolingian and Byzantine art: the basic composition is reminiscent of that of the portrait of Charles the Bald in the Vivian Bible, while the divine crowning, the frontal, confrontational gaze of the emperor, the golden background, and the imperial halo are all elements found in earlier Byzantine art. The combination of iconographic details and their multiple referents were certainly meant to convey the idea that the Ottonian emperor was successor to the Carolingian kings and equal to the Byzantine emperor, and that the Ottonian emperor could justly call himself Romanorum imperator augustus (the title adopted by Otto II in the early 980s).53 Like the images of Byzantine emperors, Ottonian ruler portraits were designed to commentary on Judith, Esther and Macchabees (Geneva, Bibliothèque de la Ville, MS 22, fol. 3v), and Ermintrude, the first wife of Charles the Bald, and or Richildis, his second wife, who stand to the king’s left in the portrait of Charles the Bald in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura (Abbazia di San Paolo, fol. 1). 51 On women in Ottonian culture in general, see R. McKitterick, ‘Women in the Ottonian Church: An Iconographic Perspective’, in Women in the Church, ed. D. Wood, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford, 1990), pp. 79–100 (reprinted in R. McKitterick The Frankish Kings in the Early Middle Ages [Aldershot, 1995]). 52 Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Illumination, I, 61; K. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (London, 1979), pp. 75–107. See also E. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957). 53 K. Leyser, ‘Theophanu divina gratia imperatrix augusta: Western and Eastern Emperorship in the Later Tenth Century’, in Empress Theophano, ed. Davids, pp. 1–48, at 35.

15

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England be icons of supreme and immovable power, and to command the veneration of the viewer; however the Ottonian emperors remained, like the Carolingians, mediators between their subjects and the church and not, like the Byzantines, between the human and the divine. The narrative contexts into which the Ottonian portraits are worked, along with the dramatic gestures and expressions of the figures, also keep our eyes moving through the stories and away from the icons. It would be difficult to say, for example, which was the most commanding image in the Gospels of Otto III (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm. 4453), the colossal portrait of the king himself on folio 24, or the explosive portrait of the evangelist Luke on fol. 139v.54 Moreover, as Tim Reuter has demonstrated, there is an ahistoricity to the Ottonian ruler portraits that is indicative of ‘the absence in Ottonian culture of a historically-grounded view of what kingship was or should be’.55 With the possible exception of the Bayeux Tapestry (technically a post-Conquest work), the ambivalence of the Ottonian images is rarely a feature of Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits. This is due in part to the fact that Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits do not appear in gospel books, or volumes of scriptural texts, and are therefore not competing for attention with sacred images and biblical stories. Even in sculpture, ‘portraits’ such as the possible portraits of Æthelburga of Lyminge (wife of King Edwin) on the Hackness ‘cross’, or Alcfrith, subking of Deira, on the Bewcastle ‘cross’,56 which are parts of larger iconographic programmes, are never in competition with the other scenes, figures or texts they accompany. Again, however, these are memorial or commemorative sculptures whose original functions, as is the case with the manuscript portraits, would have been only partially liturgical (or para-liturgical). Interestingly, on these early monuments it is in the carved portrait and the inscribed name that memory (or history) and the sacred, represented by the accompanying prayers and biblical or saintly figures, are brought together, and in this respect they do foreshadow at least one of the characteristics of the later manuscript portraits. History and historicity are fundamental to all of the Anglo-Saxon manuscript portraits, whether textual or visual, and given the extremely close relationship between each of the images and the text or texts it accompanies, it is important to approach them bearing in mind developing concepts of Anglo-Saxon history. The A text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the core of which was compiled during the reign of King Alfred, opens with a preface which is simultaneously a genealogy, a regnal list of the West Saxon kings, and a narrative of conquest, followed by two entries which document the arrival of Julius Caesar in Britain and the birth of Christ: ÞY GEARE ÞE WÆS AGAN FRAM CRISTES ACEnnesse .cccc. wintra & .xciiii. uuintra, þa Cerdic & Cynric his sunu cuom up `æt´ Cerdicesoran mid .v. scipum; & se Cerdic wæs Elesing, Elesa Esling, Esla Gewising, Giwis Wiging, Wig Freawining, 54 55

For illustrations of the two pages, see Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Illumination, I, pl. XXI; II, p. 27. T. Reuter, ‘Regemque, quem in Francia pere perdidit, in patria magnifice receipt: Ottonian Ruler Representation in Synchronic and Diachronic Comparison’, in Herrschaftsrepräsentation im ottonischen Sachsen, ed. G. Althoff and E. Schubert (Sigmaringen, 1998), pp. 363–80, at 371. 56 See above, n. 10.

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Introduction Freawine Friþugaring, Friþugar Bronding, Brond B”ldæging, B”ldæg Wodening. Ond þæs ymb .vi. gear þæs þe hie up cuomon geeodon Westseaxna rice, & þæt uuærun þa ærestan cyningas þe Westseaxna lond on Wealum geeodon; & he hæfde þæt rice .xvi. gear, & þa he gefor, þa feng his sunu Cynric to þam rice & heold .xvii. winter. Þa he gefor, þa feng Ceol to þam rice & heold .vi. gear. Þa he gefor, þa feng Ceolwulf to his broþur, & he ricsode .xvii. gear, & hiera cyn g”þ to Cerdice. Þa feng Cynegils Ceolwulfes broþur sunu to rice & ricsode .xxxi. wintra, & he onfeng ærest fulwihte Wesseaxna cyninga, & þa feng Cenwalh to & heold .xxxi. wintra, & se Cenwalh wæs Cynegilses sunu; & þa heold Seaxburg his cuen an gear þæt rice æfter him. Þa feng Æscwine to rice, þæs cyn g”þ to Cerdice, & heold .ii. gear. Þa feng Centwine to Weasseaxna rice Cynegilsing & ricsode .vii. gear. Þa feng Ceadwalla to þam rice, þæs cyn g”þ to Cerdice, & heold .iii. gear. Ða feng Ine to Seaxna rice, þ”s cyn g”þ to Ceardice, & heold .xxxvii. wintra. Þa feng ‹þelheard to, þæs cyn g”þ to Ceardice, & heold .xiiii. winter. Þa feng Cuþred to, þæs cyn g”þ to Cerdice, & heold .xvii. gear. Þa feng Sigebryht to, þæs cyn g”þ to Cerdice, & heold an gear. Þa feng Cynewulf to rice, þæs cyn g”þ to Ceardice, & heold .xxxi. wintra. Þa feng Beorhtric to rice, þæs cyn g”þ to Cerdice, & heold .xvi. gear. Þa feng Ecgbryht to þam rice & heold .xxxvii. wintra & .vii. monaþ, & þa feng ‹þelwulf his sunu to & heold nigonteoðe healf gear. Se ‹þelwulf wæs Ecgbryhting, Ecgbryht Ealhmunding, Ealhmund Eafing, Eafa Eopping, Eoppa Ingilding, Ingild Cenreding, & Ine Cenreding & Cuþburg Cenreding & Cuenburg Cenreding, Cenred Ceolwalding, Ceolwald Cuþwulfing, Cuþwulf Cuþwining, Cuþwine Celming, Celm Cynricing, Cynric Cerdicing. Ond þa feng ‹þelbald his sunu to rice & heold .v. gear. Þa feng ‹þelbryht his broþur to & heold .v. gear. Þa feng ‹þered hiera broþur to rice & heold .v. gear. Þa feng ‹lfred hiera broþur to rice, & þa was agan his ielde .xxiii. wintra & .ccc. & .xcvi. wintra þæs þe his cyn ærest Wes`t´seaxna lond on Wealum ge<e>odon. [60 B.C.] Aer Cristes geflæscnesse .lx. wintra, Gaius Iulius se casere ærest Romana Bretenlond gesohte & Brettas mid gefeohte cnysede & hie oferswiþe & swa þeah ne meahte þær rice gewinnan. [A.D. 1] An .i. Octauianus ricsode .l[x]vi. wintra, & on þam .l[x]ii. geare his rices Crist wæs acenned.57 57

MS A, ed. J. Bately, vol. 3 of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 1–2. Trans. EHD, pp. 136–8: ‘In the year when 494 years had passed from Christ’s birth, Cerdic and his son Cynric landed at Cerdicesora with five ships; and Cerdic was the son of Elesa, the son of Esla, the son of Gewis, the son of Wig, the son of Freawine, the son of Frithugar, the son of Brond, the son of Bældæg, the son of Woden. And six years after they had landed they conquered the kingdom of the West Saxons, and they were the first kings who conquered the land of the West Saxons from the Britons. And he held the kingdom for 16 years, and when he died, his son Cynric succeeded to the kingdom and held it . . . for 17 years. When he died, Ceol succeeded to the kingdom and held it for six years. When he died, his brother Ceolwulf succeeded and he reigned for 17 years, and their descent goes back to Cerdic. Then Cynegils, the son of Ceolwulf’s brother, succeeded to the kingdom and reigned 31 years, and he was the first of the kings of the West Saxons to receive baptism. And then Cenwealh succeeded, and held it for 31 years, and Cenwealh was Cynegils son. And then his queen Seaxburh held the kingdom for a year after him. Then Æscwine, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded to the kingdom, and held it for two years. Then Centwine, the son of Cynegils, succeeded to the kingdom of the West Saxons and reigned for seven years. Then Ceadwalla, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded to the kingdom and held it for three years. Then Ine, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded to the kingdom of the [West] Saxons and held it for 37 years. Then Æthelheard, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded and held it for 14 years. Then Cuthred, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded and held it 17 years. Then Sigebriht, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded and held it one year. Then Cynewulf, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded to the kingdom and held it 31 years. Then Brihtric, whose descent goes back to Cerdic, succeeded to the kingdom and held it 16 years. Then Egbert succeeded to the kingdom and held it for 37 years and seven months; and then his son Æthelwulf succeeded and held it for 18 and a half years. Æthelwulf was the son of Egbert, the son of Ealhmund, the son of Eafa, the son of Eoppa, the son of Ingild, the son of Cenred. And Ine was the son of Cenred, and Cuthburh the daughter of Cenred, and

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England While frequently cited for what it reveals about West Saxon concepts of dynasty and dynastic propaganda, the text is less frequently cited for what it reveals about Alfredian approaches to time, territory, and the image of the king, ideas which were to have a profound impact on the construction of both the English people and the English nation.58 The genealogy maps the origins of the West Saxon kings from the arrival of Cerdic and Cynric to Alfred,59 and legitimates their right to rule the land of the West Saxons,60 an as yet undefined geographical area taken by conquest from the Britons, and one which is represented in this passage as already the land of the West Saxons even before their conquest of the physical geography. Writing here creates an almost prehistoric past on to which the history of the kingdom will be grafted, and writing may also serve here to mask any uncertainty Alfred might have felt about his hopes for dynastic continuity and territorial expansion. In this passage the West Saxon dynasty goes back ‘historically’ to Cerdic, mythologically to Woden and, here by implication and later by written record,61 to Christ, validating it simultaneously at the historic, legendary Germanic and Christian levels. The dynastic narrative also neatly manages to side step the theoretical problems inherent in the ‘search for origins’ by simultaneously marking a beginning (the arrival of Cerdic) and creating both a temporal and spatial history for that beginning in the god Woden and the Germanic homelands.62 As in the larger Chronicle narrative, and as in so many aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, this is both a beginning and a continuation within a cyclical concept of Creation and history. The textual strategy we see at work here has compositional parallels in works of art such as the Bayeux Tapestry in which, as

58

59

60 61 62

Cwenburgh the daughter of Cenred. Cenred was the son of Ceolwold, the son of Cuthwulf, the son of Cuthwine, the son of Ceawlin, the son of Cynric, the son of Cerdic. And then his son Æthelbald succeeded to the kingdom and held it for five years. Then his brother Ethelbert succeeded and held it for five years. Then their brother Ethelred succeeded to the kingdom and held it for five years. Then their brother Alfred succeeded to the kingdom, and then 23 years of his life were passed, and 396 years from when his race first conquered the land of the West Saxons from the Britons. Sixty years before Christ’s incarnation, the emperor, Gaius Julius, came to Britain, as the first of the Romans, and defeated the Britons by a battle and overcame them, and nevertheless could not win the kingdom there. Octavian reigned 66 years and in the 52nd year of his reign Christ was born.’ The idea of the different tribes that made up the ‘adventus Saxonum’ being united in a common Englishness manifested in no small part by language is one that originated in the writings of Bede, and it was Bede that provided Alfred with much of the historical background for his project. For a study of the way in which ethnogenesis is manifested in the material record, see J. Hines, ‘The Becoming of the English: Identity, Material Culture and Language in Early Anglo-Saxon England’, ASSAH 7 (1994), 51–59. See D. N. Dumville, ‘The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and Texts’, Anglia 104 (1986), 1–32; D. N. Dumville, ‘The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the Chronology of Early Wessex’, Peritia 4 (1985), 21–66; A. Scharer, Herrschaft und Repräsentation: Studien zur Hofkultur König Alfreds des grossen, Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung Ergänzungsband 36 (Munich, 2000), pp. 50–61. Later kings will also find their place in the genealogical regnal lists. See Dumville, ‘Manuscripts and Texts’; Dumville, ‘Chronolgy of Early Wessex’, 23–5; below, p. 66. See below, p. 68. On the inclusion of Woden, see E. John, ‘The Point of Woden’, ASSAH 5 (1992), 128–34. For a critique of notions of and searches for origins, see M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (London, 1972), and E. Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (New York, 1975).

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Introduction Martin Foys has observed, the visual narrative often progresses by returning to the past. As with the opening passages of the Chronicle, the tapestry presents us with ‘a political succession that relies on recession’.63 The Chronicle demonstrates both here at its beginning and time and again in its later entries, that this was how the Anglo-Saxons understood history and narrative. The Bayeux Tapestry suggests that this not only remained the case to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, but also demonstrates that similar concepts lay behind their understanding and use of imagery. Perhaps surprisingly women also have a role to play in this story, one which is limited and ambiguous in comparison to that of the men, but present and acknowledged nonetheless, here in this text in the persons of Seaxburh, Cuthburgh and Cwenburgh, and in the tapestry by the images of Edith (fig. 25), Ælfgifu and the anonymous Anglo-Saxon woman fleeing her burning home. The Chronicle text further demonstrates that Anglo-Saxon ideas of history and political or cultural identity also reached beyond the shores of England. The first chronological entry records the coming of the Romans to the island, and their defeat of the Britons, but also their inability to establish a kingdom. The West Saxons in this narrative – both men and women – become not only like the Romans in their invasion of the island and defeat of its inhabitants, or at least a portion of them, but also the heirs of Rome. The fact that the West Saxons could so quickly establish their kingdom while the Romans could not,64 emphasises West Saxon military might both at the time of the origins of their kingdom and at the time of the writing of the Chronicle, a time in which Alfred and his successors were working hard to expand the borders of Wessex across England. Indeed, the fact that the transformation of Wessex into a unified England is so prominent a goal of Alfred’s reign may be one of the reasons that neither Wessex nor Britain is delimited geographically in the preface to the A text.65 The kingdom is at this moment in the process of being written into being, and its borders must remain flexible, expandable.66 The next entry records the birth of Christ, returning us to the first sentence of the preface and the arrival of Cerdic 494 years after Christ’s birth, and neatly enfolding both Anglo-Saxon and Roman history within a cycle of Christian time that begins and will ultimately end with Christ. 63

M. K. Foys, ‘All’s Well that Ends: Closure, Hypertext and the Missing End of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Exemplaria 15.1 (2003), 34–72, at 63. 64 The Romans do, of course, settle the island in AD 43, an event duly recorded in the Chronicle narrative under AD 46, but the Chronicler returns to the theme of loss in the entry for 409: Her Gotan abr”con Romeburg, & næfre siþan Romane ne ricsodon on Bretone (‘In this year the Goths broke into Rome, and never afterwards did the Romans rule in Britain’). A later hand has added a reference back to the arrival of Julius Caesar after this entry. 65 The C, D and F manuscripts of the Chronicle, by contrast, begin with a preface based on the first chapter of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, which describes the dimensions of the island and the various peoples and languages found therein. 66 On the Alfredian creation of an English ethnic and political identity, especially through writing, see variously S. Foot, ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser. 6 (1996), 25–49; K. Davis, ‘National Writing in the Ninth Century: A Reminder for Postcolonial Thinking about the Nation’, Jnl of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28.3 (1998), 611–37; S. J. Harris, ‘The Alfredian World History and Anglo-Saxon Identity’, JEGP 100 (2001), 482–510.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England I have chosen to begin this book, a book that is concerned primarily with visual portraits, with a lengthy consideration of a text because the three ideas represented by the preface and first two entries of the A text of the Chronicle will remain central to the way in which the rulers who governed a united Anglo-Saxon England understood their kingdom as well as their place in it, and thus central to the way they portrayed themselves and were portrayed by others in both the material and documentary records from the reign of Alfred to the Norman Conquest – and indeed beyond. The origins of the West Saxon dynasty and its expansion over the whole of England, England’s ties to Rome and Roman authority (manifested in its empire, its church, and its literary heritage), and the association of the Anglo-Saxon king with Christ reveal themselves in various ways in the surviving portraits of Alfred, Æthelstan, Edgar, Cnut, Emma, Edward and Edith. Moreover, the movement back and forth in time between an Anglo-Saxon present, a late antique past, and the adventus Saxonum is something that will be encountered time and again in the manuscripts and images produced by and for these same rulers, and something that will remain a prominent part of the manner in which they define their kingdom as well as their rulership.67 Texts are also important in that the most striking aspect of Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits, the one thing that really sets them apart from their continental counterparts, is the relationship between the ruler and the book. As with the Chronicle preface, this is an image that is pertinent to both men and women. Bertha, queen of Kent was a Christian at the time of her marriage to King Æthelberht, and was the catalyst for the bringing of Christianity, its books and its images to England. Her story and her image were, however, destined to be fashioned by men – primarily Gregory and Bede – and the way in which she was written into a supporting role in the introduction of Christianity into England is mirrored by the supporting roles into which women will continue to be written in the narrative of the creation of the English nation. Here too we begin our consideration of portraits with an Alfredian text. In chapter 23, one of the most celebrated passages in his Vita Alfredi, Asser writes: Cum ergo quodam die mater sua sibi et fratribus suis quendam Saxonicum poematicae artis librum, quem in manu habebat, ostenderet, ait: ‘Quisquis vestrum discere citius istum codicem possit, dabo illi illum.’ Qua voce, immo divina inspiratione, instinctus <Ælfredus>, et pulchritudine principalis litterae illius libri illectus, ita matri respondens, et fratres suos aetate, quamvis non gratia, seniores anticipans, inquit: ‘Verene dabis istum librum uni ex nobis, scilicet illi, qui citissime intelligere et recitare eum ante te possit?’ Ad haec illa, arridens et gaudens atque affirmans: ‘Dabo’, infit, ‘illi.’ Tunc ille statim tollens librum de manu sua, magistrum adiit et legit. Quo lecto, matri retulit et recitavit.68

67

On the importance of the adventus Saxonum in later Anglo-Saxon England in general, see N. Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, CT, 1989). For its survival into the later Middle Ages, and for the relation of writing to conquest, see especially Michelle R. Warren, History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain, 1100–1300 (Minneapolis, MN, 2000). 68 ‘One day, therefore, when his mother was showing him and his brothers a book of English poetry which she held in her hand, she said: “I shall give this book to whichever one of you can learn it the fastest.” Spurred on by these words, or rather by divine inspiration, and attracted by the beauty of the initial word in the book, Alfred spoke as follows in reply to his mother, forestalling his brothers (ahead in years,

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Introduction The passage is not only a key part of the myth of Alfred, it is also significant to the history of Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits; indeed it too serves as a sort of origin legend upon which the Anglo-Saxon image of kingship and queenship will be built. Just as the opening passages of the Chronicle bring together the key ideas which will shape the image first of Wessex and then of England, this one episode in the Vita Alfredi brings together learning, wisdom manifested through a love of books, christological models, and even the marginalised yet persistent role of women as important components in the shaping of the image of a good ruler. These too are motifs that will run more or less without interruption through the ruler portraits of Alfred’s successors, from the image of leadership created by his own children, Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd of Mercia (and those who wrote about them), to the images and stories of Edward the Confessor. The picture of the wise and blessed ruler that begins with Alfred learning from the book at his mother’s knee (fig. 1)69 will reach its final development in that of Edward the Confessor and his half-brother Harthacnut reaching for a very different sort of book displayed on their mother’s knee (fig. 21). These two images will be used in this book to provide a basic framework for the subject of Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits in part because of their equally important similarities to, and differences from, each other, in part because of what they help to reveal about shifting notions of what it meant to be a ruler, or to be Anglo-Saxon (or English), from the ninth to the eleventh century, and in part because they mark the beginning and the end of the West Saxon dynasty that shaped those images most profoundly. Like the passages from the Chronicle quoted above, the ruler portraits of the Anglo-Saxons create a genealogy, this time a visual genealogy, which continually locates and relocates the present in relationship to the past, or even to multiple pasts. In this way they create an image of authority that is above all manifested in the book.

though not in ability): “Will you really give this book to the one of us who can understand it the soonest and recite it to you?” Whereupon, smiling with pleasure she reassured him, saying: “Yes, I will.” He immediately took the book from her hand, went to his teacher and learnt it. When it was learnt, he took it back to his mother and recited it.’ Asser’s Life of King Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), p. 20; trans. Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, ed. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge (Harmondsworth, 1983), p. 75. All further translations of the Vita Alfredi are from the Keynes and Lapidge edition. 69 The fact that this particular scene was not, as far as we know, illustrated in Alfred’s own day, is entirely in keeping with the ambivalent and often contradictory approach taken towards women in positions of power during Alfred’s reign.

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1 Alfred Me com swiðe oft on gemynd, hwelce wiotan iu wæron giond Angelcynn, ægðer ge godcundra hada ge worul[d]cundra; and hu gesæliglica tida ða wæron giond Angelcynn; and hu ða kyningas ðe ðone onwald hæfdon ðæs folces [on ðam dagum] Gode and his ærendwrecum hersumedon; and hie ægðer ge hiora sibbe ge hiora siodo ge hiora onweald innanbordes gehioldon, and eac ut hiora eðel gerymdon; and hu him ða speow ægðer ge mid wige ge mid wisdome; and eac ða godcundan hadas hu giorne hie wæron ægðer ge ymb lare ge ymb liornunga, ge ymb ealle ða ðiowotdomas ðe hie Gode [don] scoldon; and hu man utanbordes wisdom and lare hieder on lond sohte, and hu we hie nu sceoldon ute begietan, gif we hie habban sceoldon.1

In this well-known passage from Alfred’s preface to his translation of Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis the king looks back to a glorious past in which Anglo-Saxon kings were pious, wise, and capable of both maintaining the peace and expanding their dominions. Although it may have been lost, this past was able to provide Alfred at the end of the ninth century with a vision of kingship and kingdom which could be used as both a model and a justification for his own political agenda in forging a future for the Angelcynn. If the great kings of the past were able to offer their people moral and intellectual leadership while simultaneously extending the land under their control, then so could Alfred, and his reign (871–99) thus came to be perceived as a revival of the original spirit of Anglo-Saxon leadership. In this respect Alfred very consciously occupies a temporal borderland from which he maps both the present and the future, a position that would equally consciously be adopted by later kings, most notably Edward the Confessor, the last of the ‘Cerdicing’ kings, as they continued the work of forging a nation begun by Alfred. In essence, what Alfred was doing was breaking with the past by returning to the past in order to transform it into a new image for a new regime.2 He and those who wrote about him consistently position 1

King Alfred’s West Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. H. Sweet, 2 vols. (London, 1871), I, 3. Trans. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 124–5: ‘Very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England, both in religious and secular orders; and how there were happy times then throughout England; and how the kings, who had authority over this people, obeyed God and his messengers; and how they not only maintained their peace, morality and authority at home but also extended their territory outside; and how they succeeded both in warfare and wisdom; and also how eager were the religious orders both in teaching and in learning as well as in all the holy services which it was their duty to perform for God; and how people from abroad sought wisdom and instruction in this country; and how nowadays, if we wished to acquire these things, we would have to seek them outside.’ 2 One might usefully compare this process to Foucault’s exploration of the ways in which scientific analysis, literary tradition, or patterns of history are repeatedly transformed into myths that serve the purposes of new orders of power. See, for example, M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York, 1972), pp. 64–70; M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Inter-

23

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England the king within the present time of the ninth century as not only having one eye on the past and the other on the future, but also as restoring in the ninth-century present a lost golden age which we generally all acknowledge now to have been more fiction than reality. For Alfred’s words to be believable to his Anglo-Saxon audience, however, traces of that golden age had to be shown to survive. It is certainly no accident therefore that Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica was amongst the works translated into the vernacular during Alfred’s reign, as an important part of what Keynes and Lapidge label ‘Alfred’s scheme’3 – by their definition his plan for a revival of learning – and probably by one of the Mercian scholars known to have been present at Alfred’s court.4 Bede’s history, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle demonstrates, thus became the basis for Alfredian history. Translation, the rewriting of past texts to suit present purposes, is also a means of reworking or re-establishing the authenticity of those texts,5 and it was for this very reason that translation became a crucial part of Alfred’s attempts to create a history, a vision of the future, and a collective self-image for the English people. For Alfred, as for Bede, unity lay in language and in the idea of the gens Anglorum, or Angelcynn, the latter term a literal translation of the former. The concept of the gens Anglorum, as noted by Patrick Wormald and Kathy Lavezzo, may have had its own origins in Rome in the story of Gregory and the English boys.6 Gregory was apparently the first to identify the various peoples living in Engla-lond by the single term. As the opening entries of the Chronicle suggest, Roman authority and English identity were inextricably bound up with each other. But translation was from the beginning also an important part of this story, and far more so for Alfred than it was for Bede. The boys’ English identity was translated by Gegory into a play with language, a play on the words Angle and angelus (and also Ælle/alleluia), a play that was then translated back into Old English in the Alfredian era Old English Bede. The story not only creates a unified identity for the English people, but also lends Roman papal authority to the chosen nature of that people, as well as to Alfred’s promotion of a national vernacular, by suggesting that like the English people themselves, the English language has an ‘inherently sacred character’.7

3 4

5

6

7

views and Other Writings, ed. Colin Gordon, trans. Colin Gordon et al. (New York, 1980), esp. pp. 109–14. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 28–9, see also pp. 33 and 34. D. Whitelock, ‘The Old English Bede’, Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962), 57–90; T. Miller, ed., The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1959), p. xxxiii. See, for example, R. Stanton, The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 53; K. Davis, ‘The Performance of Translation Theory in King Alfred’s National Literary Program’, in Manuscripts, Narrative, Lexicon: Essays on Literary and Cultural Transmission in Honor of Whitney F. Bolton, ed. R. Boenig and K. Davis (Lewisburg, PA, and London, 2000), pp. 149–70. P. Wormald, ‘Bede, the Bretwaldas and the Origins of the gens Anglorum’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. P. Wormald with D. Bullough and R. Collins (Oxford, 1983), pp. 99–129; K. Lavezzo, ‘Another Country: Ælfric and the Production of English Identity’, New Medieval Literatures 3 (1999), 67–93, at p. 87. Lavezzo, ‘Another Country’, pp. 88–90.

24

Alfred THE VISUAL PORTRAITS

Alfred’s vision of both the past and the future was not just hopeful words on parchment; it had its archaeological and material side as well. Both the Historia ecclesiastica and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the ‘common-stock’ of which is thought to have been compiled under Alfred’s direction,8 detailed the connection between Rome and the history of early Christian England, a connection which, as we have seen, was of particular interest to the king and the scholars associated with his court. The Chronicle, s.a. 418, records: Her Romane gesomnodon al þa goldhord þe on Bretene wæron & sume on eorþan ahyddon þæt hie nænig mon siþþan findan ne meahte & sume mid him on Gallia l”ddon.9

Within the narrative of the Chronicle the entry does the political work of clearing the way for the Anglo-Saxons, ‘the next wave of conquerors and the next empire’.10 On a less propagandistic level, the entry also suggests that it was at just this time that some of those Roman hoards had begun to turn up – quite possibly as new hoards were being concealed in the face of Viking aggression.11 It is no doubt significant in this regard that no less than three of Alfred’s new coin types were based on Roman coin designs: the Two Emperors type, the Crossand-Lozenge type, and the London Monogram type.12 The one surviving specimen of Alfred’s Two Emperors type (fig. 2) is a very careful copy of a fourth-century gold solidus. It displays on the obverse a profile bust of the diademed king surrounded by the inscription AELFRED REX ANGLO[RUM], and on the reverse two figures seated in profile beneath the open wings of an angel, and with a cross (or crossed arms) and an orb between them.13 The diademed bust on the obverse has its origins in the portrait busts of late imperial Roman coinage.14 It has quite reasonably been suggested that the iconography of the coin also carried some contemporary political significance, possibly commemorating a political alliance with Ceolwulf of Mercia,15 or possibly the coronation of Alfred and his queen Ealhswith.16 It has, it is true, been suggested 8

9 10 11

12

13 14 15 16

J. Bately, MS A, pp. xxi–xxv; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 40–1; S. Keynes, ‘A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Athelred the Unready’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 36 (1986), 195–217. ‘In this year the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain and hid some in the earth so that no one would be able to find them afterwards, and some they took with them into Gaul.’ M. Godden, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and the Goths: Rewriting the Sack of Rome’, ASE 31 (2002), 47–68, at 57. M. Blackburn, ‘The London Mint in the Reign of Alfred’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage of Southern England in the Ninth Century, ed. M. Blackburn and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 105–23, at p. 114. One should, however, note that Roman coins were also turning up in the sixth and seventh centuries. See M. Blackburn and S. Keynes, ‘A Corpus of the Cross-and-Lozenge and Related Coinages of Alfred, Ceolwulf II and Archbishop Æthelred’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances, ed. Blackburn and Dumville, pp. 125–50. See Blackburn and Dumville, Kings, Currency and Alliances, pl. 7.5. See, for example, the discussion by M. M. Archibald in The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966–1066, ed. J. Backhouse, D. H. Turner and L. Webster (Bloomington, IN, 1984), cat. no. 173. A second specimen struck for Ceolwulf of Mercia survives, but is a less precise copy. See M. M. Archibald in The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900, ed.

25

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England that this is too much meaning for a simple coin to bear,17 but this is a view that has proven to be increasingly untenable.18 One interesting complication to the picture is that the Roman Two-Emperors coins had also been copied in Kent c. 650–75,19 and both the Roman originals and the Kentish copies were extremely common issues. This raises the question of whether Alfred might also have seen examples of the seventh-century coinage. It is not unreasonable to assume that if Roman coins were turning up in the ninth century, seventh-century coins might have been turning up as well. While they cannot be associated with particular kings, the date and provenance of the earlier Anglo-Saxon coins would certainly have fit well with Alfred’s interest in reviving particular moments of the past, and it is quite possible that with his own coins, as with so much else, Alfred was engaged in a double-look back to both Rome and the idea of a Christian Roman Empire, and to the origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In any event, if not significant, it is certainly fortuitous that the earlier Two Emperors coins date from precisely the ‘happy times’ of the seventh century and the foundation of the English church in Kent towards which Alfred was looking back in his preface to the Regula Pastoralis.20 It is true that the ninth-century coins copy the Roman originals rather than the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon issue, but that can be explained by the simple fact that the Roman coins are of much higher quality, and are much closer in size to Alfredian coins than are the Kentish examples. That Alfred was fully capable of adopting and adapting particular aspects of earlier coinages to suit contemporary circumstances is further suggested by the likely influence of certain of Offa’s coins on Alfred’s Cross-and-Lozenge type,21 and the possible commemoration of Ecgberht’s Lundonia signature type (a type issued after Ecgberht had conquered Mercia and established a mint in London) in the London Monogram series issued after Alfred had regained control of the city.22 The iconography of the different issues is very likely to have carried specific meanings and, as Anna Gannon has recently argued, it is difficult to believe that the multiple messages of the coins would have gone unnoticed, especially given

17 18 19 20

21 22

L. Webster and J. Backhouse (London, 1991), cat. no. 262; S. Keynes, ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances, ed. Blackburn and Dumville, pp. 1–45, at p. 17; G. Williams, ‘Mercian Coinage and Authority’, in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe, ed. M. P. Brown and C. A. Farr (London, 2001), pp. 210–28, at p. 226; J. L. Nelson, ‘ “A King Across the Sea”: Alfred the Great in Continental Perspective’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 36 (1986), 45–68, at p. 60; Blackburn, ‘London Mint’, p. 113. Blackburn, ‘London Mint’, p. 113. On the iconography of Anglo-Saxon coins in general, see Gannon, Early Anglo-Saxon Coins. See also M. Hunter, ‘The Sense of the Past in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 3 (1974), 29–50, at 39. The three known English find-spots are Reculver, Lymme and possibly Hollingbourne. See Grierson and Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, p. 163 (and see pl. 31 no. 667). On the date of Alfred’s translation of the Regula Pastoralis and the fact that he is looking back specifically to later seventh-century Kent see Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 25, 33 124 and 294 n. 2. Blackburn and Keynes, ‘Corpus’, p. 34. R. H. M. Dolly and C. E. Blunt, ‘The Chronology of the Coins of Alfred the Great’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton, ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 77–94, at p. 83. Dolly and Blunt date the coins c. 886 rather than c. 880, but on the earlier dating see Blackburn and Keynes, ‘Corpus’, p. 121.

26

Alfred the Anglo-Saxons’ careful copying and equally careful reworking of the Roman prototypes.23 Gannon connects the introduction of the Two Emperors type into seventh-century coinage with the christianisation of England, and argues that the coins may have had a religious as well as a political meaning. ‘Secular and religious might come together’, she suggests, ‘to mirror a facet of the political background still common to Anglo-Saxon England in the 660s: the baptism of a king under the sponsorship of another.’24 The seventh-century Two Emperors coins quite plausibly served to document and publicise these politico-religious relationships.25 Baptism could indeed be a very public ceremony replete with political significance, as Bede’s account of the mass baptism of Edwin and members of the Northumbrian court makes clear,26 and it remained a particularly public and potent method of declaring a political alliance – one with distinctly imperial overtones – in Alfred’s day. Alfred’s baptismal sponsorship of the Danish Guthrum in 878 was clearly in the political tradition of the seventh-century ceremonies documented by Bede, as well as the baptism of the Danish Harald Klak by Louis the Pious in 826.27 It has been pointed out that the language of Asser’s account of Alfred’s sponsorship of Guthrum, following that of the Chronicle, glorifies Guthrum and the Danes as well as Alfred, while simultaneously establishing a political hierarchy in which Alfred indisputably occupies the most powerful position.28 Though clearly not symbolic of baptism, a similar hierarchy is established on the Alfred and Ceolwulf II pennies, on which the inscriptions identify Alfred as Rex Anglo[rum], and Ceolwulf II simply as Rex.29 Given the imagery, inscriptions and iconographic sources of the Alfredian coins, it seems most likely that they served to document a political alliance that would ultimately pave the way for complete Mercian submission to Alfred under ealdorman Æthelred some time after 879. 23 24 25

26 27

28

29

Gannon, Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage, pp. 85–6. Gannon, Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage, p. 86. An alternative interpretation for the seventh-century coins has been proposed by Marion Archibald, who believes that the two ‘emperors’ on the coins are better understood as two saints, and suggests that the coins may have been issued by a religious foundation with two patron saints such as the monastery of SS Peter and Paul (later St Augustine’s), Canterbury. See M. Archibald, M. P. Brown and L. Webster, ‘Heirs of Rome: the Shaping of Britain AD 400–900’, in Transformation of the Roman World, ed. Webster and Brown, p. 236. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969), II.iv. (Hereafter Hist. eccles.) Thegan, Gesta Hludowici Imperatoris 19, ed. E. Tremp, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 64 (Hanover, 1995), 200:4–10; J. L. Nelson, ‘Carolingian Royal Ritual’, in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine and S. Price (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 99–132. See also A. Angenendt, ‘The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons Considered against the Background of the Early Medieval Mission’, Angli e Sassoni al di qua e al di là del mare. Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (1984) (Spoleto, 1986), 747–81. For the broader European context, see A. Angenendt, Kaiserherrschaft und Königstaufe. Kaiser, Könige und Päpste als geistliche Patrone in der abendländischen Missionsgeschichte (Berlin, 1984). See T. Charles-Edwards, ‘Alliances, Godfathers, Treaties and Boundaries’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances, ed. Blackburn and Dumville, pp. 47–62; D. N. Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar. Six Essays on Political, Cultural, and Ecclesiastical Revival (Woodbridge, 1992), ch. 1. For coins which might possibly be associated with Guthrum’s baptism (a few coins were struck with Guthrum’s baptismal name Athelstan), see Dolly and Blunt, ‘Chronology’, p. 85; Grierson and Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, pp. 314 and 318–19. Archibald in Making of England, ed. Webster and Backhouse, cat. no. 262; Blackburn, ‘London Mint’, p. 113.

27

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Whatever the specific meaning (or meanings) of the Two Emperors coinage, Alfred’s consistent use of a Christian past centred dually on Rome and England in his construction of a new English kingdom and a new style of English kingship is undeniable and evident in virtually every aspect of his reign. So too is his presentation of himself as a wise and deeply religious yet all-powerful king. These same features may also be identified in the Alfred Jewel (fig. 3), generally but by no means unanimously, considered to be the head of one of the æstels (book pointers) sent out by the king with copies of his translation of Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis.30 Although we cannot be absolutely certain that the Jewel is an æstel, that it ever accompanied one of Alfred’s texts, or indeed that it was made at the command of the king, its find site (North Petherton, four miles from Athelney, Somerset), quality, style, iconography, composition, and the language of its inscription are all in accord with it being both one of Alfred’s commissions and an object associated with the act of reading. It also has a number of specific connections with ideas and themes central to the Regula Pastoralis and its Alfredian translation, and it will therefore be accepted here, albeit with due caution, as one of Alfred’s æstels. If this much is accepted, it becomes possible to understand both the Jewel and the text it is likely to have accompanied as types of portrait (or self-portrait) and as manifestations of the king’s authority;31 but even if the argument is not accepted, the Jewel is at the very least a product of distinctly Alfredian concerns. Like the coins discussed above, both the Jewel and the preface to the Regula Pastoralis incorporate items from the Roman world into a new English context: the Jewel features a refashioned Roman rock crystal, the only element of the piece not of Anglo-Saxon workmanship,32 while the preface accompanies a new vernacular translation of a Latin text associated with one of the earliest Christian missions to the Anglo-Saxons.33 Aside from being a highly valued gem, rock crystal itself was an inherently powerful material that carried spiritual meaning, being commonly associated with purity, innocence and faith.34 In his Homiliarum in Ezechielem, book 1, homily 7, Gregory the Great describes crystal as symbolic of Christ: 30

31

32 33 34

See L. Webster, ‘Alfred Jewel’, in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge et al. (Oxford, 1999), pp. 28–9. But for alternative interpretations of the Jewel’s iconography and function see also L. Webster in Making of England, ed. Webster and Backhouse, pp. 282–3; L. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova: Treasures of Alfred’s Reign’, in Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh Centenary Conferences, ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003); D. Hinton, ed., A Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100 in the Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1974), pp. 29–48; P. E. Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik. Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte vom dritten bis zum sechszehnten Jahrhundert, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae historica (Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des Mittelalters 13/1, 4 vols. [Stuttgart, 1954]), I, pp. 370–4 for summaries of the alternative interpretations of the Jewel’s function. S. Lerer, Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Lincoln, NB, and London, 1991), pp. 84–5; Davis, ‘National Writing’, 627; R. Gameson, ‘Alfred the Great and the Destruction and Production of Christian Books’, Scriptorium 49 (1995), 180–210, at 203 (Gameson describes the preface as a ‘frontispiece’ to the translation). L. Webster, Making of England, p. 283. Scharer (Herrschaft und Repräsentation, p. 47) connects the iconography of the Jewel with the story of Alfred’s anointing in Rome. G. Kornbluth, Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire (University Park, PA, 1995), p. 18; A. Meaney, Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones, BAR Brit. ser. 96 (1981), pp. 90–6.

28

Alfred Crystallum . . . ex aqua congelascit et robustum fit. Scimus uero quanta sit aquae mobilitas. Corpus autem Redemptoris nostri, quia usque ad mortem passioni subiacuit, aquae simile iuxta aliquid fuit, quia nascendo, crescendo, lassescendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, moriendo, usque ad passionem suam per momenta temporum mobiliter decucurrit . . . Sed quia per resurrectionis suae gloriam ex ipsa sua corruptione in incorruptionis uirtutem conualuit, quasi crystalli more ex aqua duruit . . . Aqua ergo in crystallum uersa est, quando corruptionis eius infirmitas per resurrectionem suam ad incorruptionis est firmitatem mutata.35

Although there is no direct evidence that Alfred was familiar with this particular text, Gregory’s homilies on Ezekiel were known to the anonymous author of the Vita S. Gregorii, Bede, Ælfric and Cynewulf,36 and the book of Ezekiel was an important source for the Regula Pastoralis, and Ezekiel himself one of Gregory’s primary models for rulers, pastors and teachers.37 Moreover, the general association of crystal with Christ was familiar in the Carolingian court circles with which Alfred retained so many contacts.38 It is therefore entirely possible that Alfred or one of the various ecclesiastical figures who aided him with his translation of the Regula Pastoralis was familiar with the homily on Ezekiel. Yet even if the text was not known at Alfred’s court the association of Christ with crystal was inherent in the Old English word cristesmæl, or cristelmæl, meaning ‘cross’, and crystal was used for crosses in the early Anglo-Saxon church.39 Crystal was also a material associated with legal divination, and hence the bringing of truth or wisdom to light in the process of judgement in both Frankia40 and Anglo-Saxon England. According to Bede (following Pliny), crystal cut into a hexagonal shape was symbolic of the man wise by divine grace.41 One might also speculate on whether rock crystal might not have had a more personal meaning for Alfred in 35

36

37

38

39 40 41

Sancti Gregorii Magni, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 142 (Turnhout, 1971), p. 95. ‘Crystal . . . hardens from water and becomes firm. Indeed we know how active water is. The body of our Redeemer was somewhat similar, because it was subject to suffering even unto death; since by being born, by growing, by becoming weary, by being hungry, by being thirsty, by dying, it actively rushed through the moments of time right up to the passion . . . Through the glory of [that body’s] resurrection, it changed from corruption into the perfection of incorruption, it grew hard just as crystal [hardens] from water . . . Water was turned into crystal, since the weakness of corruption was changed into the strength of incorruption through his resurrection.’ Trans. in Kornbluth, Engraved Gems, pp. 16–18. A search of the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici reveals that Gregory’s Hom. Ez. 1.8 was a source for the anonymous author of the Vita, S. Gregorii, Hom. Ez. 1.9 was a source for Bede’s Explanatio Apocalypsis, Hom. Ez. 1.4 for Æelfric’s ‘Life of St Mark the Evanagelist’, and Hom. Ez. 1.10 for Cynewulf’s Christ 2 (The Ascension). See now also T. N. Hall, ‘The Early English Manuscripts of Gregory the Great’s Homiliae in Evangelia and Homiliae in Hezechihelem: A Preliminary Survey’, in Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, ed. R. H. Bremmer Jr, K. Dekker and D. F. Johnson (Paris, Leuven, Sterling, VA, 2001), pp. 115–36. M. Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King: The Ministerial Ideology of Kingship and Asser’s Res Gestae Ælfredi’, in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. R. Gameson and H. Leyser (Oxford, 2001), pp. 106–41, at p. 111. See generally Kornbluth, Engraved Gems, pp. 16–18. As Kornbluth notes, Gregory’s Homiliarum in Ezechielem was known on the continent and was particularly influential on writers like Hrabanus Maurus (ibid.). Meaney, Anglo-Saxon Amulets, p. 92. G. Kornbluth, Protecting the Body, Building the Mind: Gemstone Amulets (forthcoming). Bede, Explanatio Apocalypsis (PL 93, 129–206) III.21. Meaney (Anglo-Saxon Amulets, p. 92) believes that Bede’s words apply only to beryl and not rock crystal because of his description of the stone as akin to water illuminated by the sun, but both water and sunlight ate elements commonly associated with rock crystal.

29

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England particular as it was one of the ingredients included in the prescription said to have been sent to the king by the Patriarch Elias (878–907) as a cure for his second illness, although the medicinal value of crystal itself stemmed from its mystical association with the elements and with Christ.42 Whether symbolic specifically of Christ or symbolic more generally of purity and faith, the meaning and function of the crystal form a perfect complement to the enamelled figure, most frequently identified as a personification of Sight and/or the Wisdom of God.43 Sight had something of an ambivalent role in Alfredian thought and prose; indeed, it was Janus faced, much like Alfred himself. Sight could betray as well as elevate; it could lead one forward to the light of God and truth, but a backward glance could also lead one to sin and perdition – as the story of David and Bathsheba taught.44 The little figure on the Jewel, with his eyes wide open and protected beneath the white stone associated with Christ, is perhaps meant as a guide in the path forward to wisdom. As sight is one of the most crucial tools in the getting of wisdom there is, as Matthew Kempshall has noted, no reason that the figure cannot represent both Sight and the Wisdom of God, particularly as both are central to the text of the Regula Pastoralis and, significantly, to at least one point at which the Alfredian vernacular translation elaborates on the Latin original.45 The importance of the sense of sight and of the eyes as teachers is a recurring motif in Gregory, as for example, in his chapters on the unlearned man not undertaking teaching,46 on what kind of man should not rule,47 and on how the teacher should be foremost in his works.48 One of the points at which Alfred adds his own interpretation to Gregory’s words is in the chapter on how the teacher is to be pure in heart. The good priest (and by extension all those in pastoral roles) must cunne god and yfel tosceadan (‘know how to

42

43

44

45 46 47 48

See D. Pratt, ‘The Illnesses of King Alfred the Great’, ASE 30 (2002), 39–90, at 72 n. 173; A. L. Meaney, ‘Alfred, the Patriarch and the White Stone’, AUMLA Jnl of the Australasian Universities Lang. and Lit. Assoc. 49 (1978), 65–79. ‘The White Stone is good for stitch and flying venom, and for all strange mishaps. You must scrape it into water and drink a good deal and scrape a part of the red earth into it; and the stones are all very good to drink from against all unknown things. When fire is struck from the stone it is good against lightening and thunders, and against all kinds of delusions; and if a man has gone astray on his way let him strike a spark before him, he will soon be right. All this Dominus Elias, a patriarch in Jerusalem, ordered to be said to King Alfred’ (Meaney, p. 66). See also T. O. Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols., rev. ed. (London, 1961), II, 290–1; Meaney, Anglo-Saxon Amulets, pp. 92–3. The motives of Elias in sending this information (see A. P. Smyth, King Alfred the Great [Oxford, 1995], p. 208) need not be relevant to the way in which the information was received either at Alfred’s court or in Anglo-Saxon England in general. See note 30 above. See also E. Bakka, ‘The Alfred Jewel and Sight’, Antiquaries Jnl 46 (1966), 277–82; D. Howlett, ‘The Iconography of the Alfred Jewel’, Oxoniensia 39 (1974), 44–52; Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’. P. Kershaw, ‘Illness, Power and Prayer in Asser’s Life of King Alfred’, Early Medieval Europe 10.2 (2001), 201–24, at pp. 213–18; A. Frantzen, ‘Sodom and Gomorrah in the Prose Works of Alfred’s Reign’, in Alfred the Wise, ed. J. Roberts, J. L. Nelson and M. Godden (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 25–33. David’s improper glance at Bathsheba becomes a visual warning for kings in the later Middle Ages, as for example in the 1260 Psalter of St Louis (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 10525, fol. 85v) in which David’s looking at Bathsheba is contrasted with Louis’ looking at Christ. Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’, pp. 125–6. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 29. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 69. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 83.

30

Alfred distinguish good and evil’),49 and like Aaron on whose breast was written ða lare and ða domas and ða soðfæstnesse (‘teaching, judgements and truth’),50 he ðara ðing ðe him underðiodde bioð for ðæm ege anum ðæs innecundan deman inweardlice undersece (‘must earnestly serve the cause of those who are under his care solely because of his awe of the inner judge’).51 This is necessary because the good priest (pastor, judge or ruler) is to Cristes bisene and to his anlicnesse ðær aset (‘established as a type and likeness of Christ’)52; and this is where Alfred’s translation departs from the Latin. Gregory describes the good leader as operating as a servant of the divine, but not specifically as a type of Christ: in hoc quod diuina positus uice dispensat.53 The Jewel can thus be understood as a visualisation of the idea, as expanded by Alfred, that the ability to see and to understand the difference between good and evil (to look properly), and hence the ability to be a just judge, is what marks the ruler as a leader of his people modelled on the figure of Christ. It might also be possible to connect specific iconographic details of the Jewel to specific lines of the text of the Regula Pastoralis. The fact that the figure holds two ends of a flowering rod, for example, may relate to the words of Paul quoted by Gregory and translated by Alfred as Gað ge gewæpnode ægðer ge on ða suiðran hond, ge on ða winstran mid ðæm wæpnum ryhtwisnesse.54 The teacher who goes out thus armed is further described as dressed in purple and scarlet adorned with gold and jacinth, forðæm ðæt wære getacnod on hu mislecum and [on] hu monigfaldum mægenum se sacerd scolde scinan beforan Gode, mannum to bisene.55 Jacinth (hyacinth, or blue) in particular was important as a sign that [e]all ðætte ðæs sacerdes ondgit ðurhfaran mæge, sie ymb ða hefonlican lufan, næs ymbe idelne gilp,56 while the gold and purple were symbolic of royal authority.57 The possible relationship of the colours of the priest’s robes described in Gregory’s text to the figure on the Jewel has been explored recently by Matthew Kempshall.58 The figure’s garments are green and reddish brown (a colour often used as ‘purple’), he has white skin, and is seated against a blue background. It is certainly possible that the artist or patron of the Jewel was using the colour symbolism elucidated by Gregory to articulate its complex meaning; however, it is important to note that similar colours are used in the enamelled 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58

Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 77. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 79. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 79. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 79. ‘In that he rules with the authority of the divine.’ Gregory the Great, Règle Pastorale, ed. and trans. B. Judic, 2 vols. (Paris, 1992), I, 178. ‘Go armed on the right hand and the left with weapons of righteousness’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 83). It might also be significant that the figure on the Jewel actually looks towards his own right hand. ‘Because by that was shown how various and manifold virtues the priest should shine before God as an example to men’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, pp. 83, 85). ‘All that which the mind of the priest penetrates, it must be for the sake of heavenly love, not for the sake of idle pride’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 85). Eac ðæm golde and ðæm line wæs ongemang purpura, ðæt is cynelic hræg[l], forðæm hit tacnað kynelicne anwald. (‘In addition to the gold and the linen there was purple, that is a royal cloth, because it is a sign of royal power’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 85). ‘No Bishop, No King’, p. 125. See also more generally P. Kitson, ‘Lapidary Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England, II: Bede’s Explanatio Apocalypsis and Related Works’, ASE 12 (1983), 73–123.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England decoration of the Minster Lovell Jewel which has no figural iconography and could not possibly be so closely associated with the words of Gregory’s text.59 Even if such precise symbolism were not intended, the pose of the figure can be associated with both Sight and with judgement,60 and the colours of his robes are royal. One wonders further in this regard whether the flowering rods held by the figure, or the foliate decoration on the back of the Jewel, might not also have signified royal power, and might not possibly have been influenced by the use of fleur-de-lis like floral motifs on regalia associated with Charles the Bald and other of the Carolingian kings,61 motifs which may also have carried references to both the Old Testament and Christ as the Good Shepherd.62 Alfred’s father, Æthelwulf, had married Charles’s thirteen-year-old daughter Judith in an imperial Carolingian ceremony, and there can be no doubt that both he and his son were familiar with Carolingian imperial insignia. It is also worthy of note that King Æthelwulf’s ring, an object which was clearly a sign of the kings authority and could possibly have functioned as a type of loose seal, is decorated with two peacocks flanking a central tree of life, although the tree is of a very different form than that on the back of the Jewel.63 Given the overall iconography of the imagery, the colours, and the symbolism of the Alfred Jewel, the identity of the figure may reasonably be extended to include Alfred himself,64 particularly given the typological relationship between the wise ruler and Christ established in the text the Jewel is thought to have accompanied. The Jewel may thus be understood as a manifestation of all that Alfred viewed as most necessary to a leader whether of a kingdom or a church: wisdom, judgement, wealth, authority, and obedience to divine and earthly law. It functioned in part as a sign that both the king who commissioned the Jewel and the bishop who received it possessed these qualities, and also quite literally as a pointer towards the way in which they were to be obtained. If indeed an æstel, the now missing tip of the pointer would have skimmed the surface of the page, while the figure beneath the crystal would have stood out as a personification of the 59 60 61

62 63

64

See D. Hinton, Catalogue, pp. 27–9. See note 34 above. See also C. Farr, The Book of Kells: Its Function and Audience (London and Toronto, 1997), p. 64 and p. 97 n. 59. As suggested by Schramm, Herrschaftzeichen, p. 373. Such motifs can be seen for example on both his crown and the sceptre he holds in his psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1152, fol. 3v), on his crown and throne in the Vivian Bible presentation portrait (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1, fol. 423r), and on the crown that he wears in both the portrait in his private prayerbook (Munich, Schatzkammer der Residenz, fol. 38v) and his portrait in the Codex Aureus of St Emmeram (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 14000, fol. 5v). On the possible origins of the fleur-de-lis as a royal symbol, see A. Lombard-Jourdan, Fleur de lis et Oriflamme: Signes célestes du royaume de France (Paris, 1991), pp. 122–7. Schramm, Herrschaftzeichen, pp. 412–15. Making of England, ed. Webster and Backhouse, cat. no. 243. On the pros and cons of such objects functioning as seals, see P. Chaplais, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: From the Diploma to the Writ’, in Priscia Monumenta, ed. F. Ranger (London, 1973), pp. 43–62, esp. pp. 50–2; B. Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned: A New Theme in Anglo-Saxon Royal Iconography’, in Kings and Kingship, ed. J. T. Rosenthal (Binghamton, NY, 1986), pp. 53–88, at 54 and 60; P. D. A. Harvey and A. McGuinness, A Guide to British Medieval Seals (London, 1996), pp. 3–4; J. Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–870 (Aldershot, 2003), p. 166. See also Scharer, Herrshcaft und Repräsentation, pp. 47–8.

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Alfred eternal wisdom to be gained through a thorough understanding of the text, through seeing and reading properly. The range of voices that Alfred himself adopted in his various translations, including those of Wisdom and Christ,65 also indicates that the figure can be understood as both a personification and an allegorical portrait. In this respect Seth Lerer’s suggestion that the Jewel may have functioned as a kind of seal has much to recommend it. Whatever the specific meanings of its iconographic details, the Jewel was ‘a physical reminder of the king’s command’, accompanying the text of the translation, which Alfred himself defines as an ærendgewrit (letter or written message),66 as an insegel accompanies a writ.67 Alfred’s translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies includes the well-known sentence ‘Consider now if your lord’s letter and his seal come(s) to you, can you say that you cannot understand him thereby or recognise his will therein?’ The implication of the wording is that the seal accompanies the letter, but is not attached to it; just as the æstel accompanied and was not to be removed from the manuscript, but was not physically attached to it.68 It is probable that such passages referred to loose seals ‘carried along with the written or oral message in order to represent the sender and affirm the veracity of the text’s content’.69 The preface also employs a version of the opening of a royal writ.70 At the end of the prose preface Alfred famously commands that in God’s name no one is to remove the æstel from the book, or the book from the church, underscoring the inseparable nature of the two objects and the value of the æstel: Ond ic bibiode on Godes noman ðæt nan mon ðone æstel from ðære bec ne do, ne ða boc from ðæm mynstre.71 Moreover, as Lerer points out, the sentence implies that the ‘removal of the one from the other would, in some sense, violate the order of the king or the authority of the document itself’.72 The voice of the king’s command is also echoed by the voices of both the Jewel and the book. The Jewel is inscribed + AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN,73 65

66

67 68

69

70 71 72 73

See Kershaw, ‘Illness, Power and Prayer’, 218. Kershaw does not mention Wisdom, but it is there in Alfred’s translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, with its famous change from a female to a male personification. On the relationship of grammatical gender to voice and visual personification see C. E. Karkov, ‘Broken Bodies and Singing Tongues: Gender and Voice in the Cambridge Corpus Christi College 23 Psychomachia’, ASE 30 (2002), 115–36; C. E. Karkov, ‘Naming and Renaming’. See Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 84. Lerer also notes that the same word is used again by Alfred in an interpolated section of his translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies, where he refers to a lord’s arendgewrit and insegel. See also S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘The Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), p. 136; G. Kornbluth, Engraved Gems, p. 84. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 84; see also K. Davis, ‘National Writing’, 627. See also S 1454 (Wynflæd vs. Leofwine) of 990: ‘þa sende se cyning be Æluere abbude his insegel to þam gemote æt Cwicelmeshlæwe’ (‘then the king sent his seal through abbot Ælfhere to the meeting at Cwicelmeshlæwe’). See also T. A. Heslop, ‘English Seals from the Mid-9th Century to 1100’, Jnl of the British Archaeological Association 133 (1980), 1–16; idem, ‘Seals’, in Blackwell Encyclopaedia, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 413–14, esp. p. 414, on the existence of sealed letters in England from at least the 860s; Bedos-Rezak, ‘King Enthroned’, p. 54; n. 63 above. The ‘X grete Y’ formula. See F. E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), pp. 61–3. Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 9. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 84. ‘+Alfred ordered me to be made’. The Jewel and its inscription might also be usefully compared with the Susanna Crystal made for Lothar II some time between 855 and 869. Above the canopy under which the judgement of the elders is taking place is the inscription LOTHARIUS REX FRANC[ORUM ME

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England while the verse preface declares Siððan min on Englisc Ælfred kyning awende worda gehwilc, and me his writerum sende suð and norð; heht him swelcra ma brengan bi ðære bisene.74 The verse preface also unites the persons of Augustine, Gregory and Alfred in the production of the text,75 while simultaneously mapping its transmission from sixth-century Rome to ninth-century England via Augustine’s mission of the late sixth/early seventh century: Þis ærendgewrit Agustinus ofer sealtne sæ suðan brohte iegbuendum, swa hit ær foreadihtode dryhtnes cempa Rome papa. Ryhtspell monig Gregorius gleawmod gindwod ðurh sefan snyttro . . . Siððan min on Englisc Ælfred kyning awende worda gehwelc.76

Like a new Augustine, Alfred is going back to Rome to bring both books and wisdom to the English people, but Alfred also supplants Gregory and his English text supplants the Latin text.77 Even more than that, by translating these Latin texts into the English language he is also helping to develop the idea, growing in part out of the story of Gregory, of an English people united by an English church – an idea again made current by Bede. As a personification of the Wisdom of God that comes in using one’s sight and one’s mind to discover the true meaning of the text, the figure on the Jewel would have served almost as a personification of these processes, physically helping to bring the message to the reader, reminding him of the ideals and orders of the absent king, and further connecting whoever happened to be reading the book (presumably the bishop addressed in the preface) with the chain of authorial voices present in the text, most particularly with that of Alfred himself. The strategy creates a communal identity for Alfred and his bishops through the act of reading which parallels the communal identity established through writing and through language in the text of the preface itself.

ALFRED’S AUTHORIAL SELF-PORTRAIT

There is no doubt that some truth lies behind the state of England and the state of learning that Alfred describes in his preface. As Nicholas Brooks has pointed out, the ‘principal scribe’ of the Canterbury writing office in the early 870s was a

74

75 76

77

F]IERI IVUSSIT (‘Lothar king of the Franks ordered me to be made’). Genevra Kornbluth has made a good case for the stone’s being understood as symbolic of Justitia, noting also that the phrase fieri iussit is ‘normally associated with royal chancelleries’ (Engraved Gems, pp. 31–48, esp. pp. 46–7). ‘Afterwards, King Alfred translated each word of me into English and sent me south and north to his scribes; ordered them to make more such copies from this exemplar’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 9). The book here becomes a model (bisene) for the scribes, just as the priest or ruler is a model (bisene) for all those under his care. See above, note 49. See, for example, Gameson, ‘Destruction’, 205. ‘Augustine brought this written message from the south over the salt sea to the island-dwellers, just as the Lord’s champion, the pope in Rome, had previously written it. The wise Gregory was versed in many doctrines through his wisdom . . . Afterwards, King Alfred translated each word of me into English’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 9). See also N. G. Discenza, ‘The Old English Bede and the Construction of Anglo-Saxon Identity’, ASE 31 (2002), 69–80.

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Alfred miserable writer with a painfully low level of literacy.78 That does not mean, however, that we should accept the preface as an entirely accurate account of the historical situation untainted by deliberate self-promotion or political rhetoric. The very fact that Alfred could produce such effective and accomplished prose indicates that the situation was unlikely to have been as disastrous as he portrayed it,79 and whatever the actual state of learning and literacy in the late ninth century, there is an acknowledged antiquarianism to the whole project, with the writings of Bede once again providing important source material. In looking back to the golden age of Bede, Alfred may have been thinking of Bede’s account of the equation of the conversion of England with linguistic reform and the mastering of religious texts,80 especially as it was at just this point in the Historia ecclesiastica (II.i) that Bede remarked on the importance of the Regula Pastoralis. Quoting Gregory’s Moralia in Job, Bede writes: Ecce linqua Brittaniae, quae nihil aliud nouerat quam barbarum frendere, iamdudum in diuinis laudibus Hebreum coepit alleluia resonare.81 The very fact that Alfred was so aware of the power of texts to control their readers implies a profound understanding of both his sources and the uses to which literacy and education could be put.82 The purpose of the preface to the Regula Pastoralis was not so much to describe the state of England as it was to convince Alfred’s bishops to do what he wanted them to do, and to convince them further that they (Alfred included) were ‘all in this together’. In the text of the preface he very carefully appeals to history, to common experience and to the common memory of his people at both a grammatical and a rhetorical level, a strategy that quite literally fashions a collective self-image for the English people, and no doubt consciously turns the linguistic relationship between cyning and cyn to political and cultural use.83 The preface exhibits a balanced but insistent use of first person singular and plural pronouns creating the impression that ic and we speak with one voice and have one common purpose. The frequency with which first person pronouns are used has the effect of making second person pronouns (ðu, iow, ge), where they occur, catch the 78

79

80 81

82 83

N. P. Brooks, ‘England in the Ninth Century: The Crucible of Defeat’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 29 (1979), 1–20, at 15–16; N. P. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), pp. 170–4; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 294–5 n. 4; H. Gneuss, ‘King Alfred and the History of Anglo-Saxon Libraries’, in Modes of Interpretation in Old English Literature, ed. P. R. Brown, G. R. Crampton and F. C. Robinson (Toronto, 1986), pp. 26–49. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 2; R. H. C. Davis, ‘Alfred the Great: Propaganda and Truth’, History 56 (1971), 169–82; J. Morrish, ‘King Alfred’s Letter as a Source of Learning in England in the Ninth Century’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. P. E. Szarmach (Albany, 1986), pp. 87–107. N. Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, CT, 1989), p. 122. ‘Lo the mouth of Britain, which once knew only how to gnash its barbarous teeth, has long since learned to sing the praises of God with the alleluia of the Hebrews’ (Hist. eccles., pp. 130–1). For Bede the story no doubt also provided an analogy for his own story of Cædmon. One can only speculate as to why the quotation from Gregory was not included in the Old English Bede, but it may have been that its implication that the English language was barbaric babble was at odds with the Alfredian promotion of that same language. See Dicenza, ‘Old English Bede’, on language and translation as it applies to that text in general. On ‘textual power’ see Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 62; R. E. Scholes, Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English (New Haven, 1985), p. 21. On the importance of this theme in the royal genealogies, see D. Anlezark ‘Sceaf, Japheth and the Origins of the Anglo-Saxons’, ASE 31 (2002), 13–46, at 33.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England reader’s attention, forcefully driving home the king’s message to his original audience. Roughly 80 per cent of the second person pronouns are clustered in one sentence, the sentence in which Alfred comes to the point: and forðon ic ðe bebiode ðæt ðu do swæ ic geliefe ðæt ðu wille, ðæt ðu ðe ðissa woruldðinga to ðæm geæmetige swæ ðu oftost mæge, ðæt ðu ðone wisdom ðe ðe God sealde ðær ðær ðu hiene befæstan mæge, befæste.84 Not only does Alfred here switch from explanation to command, but the swæ ic geliefe ðæt ðu wille of the sentence implies that here too the reader is ultimately of the same mind as the king. On a grander scale the preface, while reflecting reality, also creates an image of Anglo-Saxon history, and an image of a new national identity that Alfred was only just in the process of forging. The past is here a product of the king’s memory, which is both imaginative and selective. Alfred ‘remembers’ a united England comprised of one people, the Angelcynn, even though such an England never existed.85 By overlooking the differences that had once separated the various kingdoms and ethnic groups that made up early Anglo-Saxon England (just as Gregory had done), Alfred is able to put forward his vision of an England united by a common history, ancestry and language. But this is again a history that embraces the world of Rome. In both the preface and the translation of the Regula Pastoralis Alfred positions himself as a mediator between the Roman past and the English present. In translating Gregory Alfred becomes the voice of Gregory, linguistically and culturally both Roman and English, and it is this very border position that authorises his own writing of history. The fictional, personal memory of which Alfred writes then becomes collective memory via the neat shifts between ic and we, and by making it such Alfred is able to persuade his readers that he is restoring a glorious past that was in fact more ideal than real. Picking up perhaps on Gregory’s reference to good priests, or teachers, following in the tracks of their departed forefathers, the saints,86 Alfred describes how the tracks of ‘our forefathers’ have been lost – with the implication being of course that they would now be rediscovered through his educational reforms. Not only do the king’s prose imply a single past experience, but the king’s voice now becomes the voice of the English people through the use of the balanced pronouns hie/ure and hie/us: Swelce hie cwæden: Ure ieldran, ða ðe ðas stowa ær hioldon, hie lufodon wisdom and ðurh ðone hie begeaton welan and us læfdon. Her mon mæg giet gesion hiora swæð.87

One of the lost forefathers whose track Alfred was most anxious to follow was Bede and, as we have seen, Bede provided the model for much of the ideal state 84

‘And therefore I command you to do as I believe you will, to disengage yourself from worldly things as often as you can, so that you may apply the wisdom which God has given you wherever you can’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 5). 85 K. Davis, ‘National Writing’, 620–5; Foot, ‘Making of Angelcynn’, 32–4. 86 Ðonne stæpð se sacerd suiðe tælleaslice on ðone weg, ðonne he ða bisene ðara forðgefarenra federa geornlice and unablinnendlice sceawað, and on ðæt suæð ðara haligra singallice winnað to spyriganne. (‘Then the priest steps very blamelessly on the path when he eagerly and unceasingly follows the example of the departed forefathers, and ever strives to follow in the path of the saints’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 77). 87 ‘It is as if they had said: Our forefathers, those who formerly held these places, they loved wisdom and through that they obtained wealth and left it to us. Here one may yet see their path’ (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 5).

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Alfred which Alfred wished to ‘restore’, as well as the model for the identity of the Angelcynn (or gens Anglorum). It was Bede who had chronicled the happy times towards which Alfred was looking back, and Bede who had first associated the gens Anglorum with the Israelites of Exodus, and England with the new Israel.88 But just as Alfred developed a christological typology from Gregory’s words, he expanded on Bede’s analogy to create an underlying biblical aspect to virtually every facet of his rule.89 In reworking Bede to suit his own agenda Alfred in many ways assimilated himself to Bede just as he had to Gregory, and just as he had become one with the Angelcynn in the words of the preface. Bede recorded that Pope Honorius had recommended Gregory’s writings as a guide to King Edwin of Northumbria90 (and Bede himself recommended the Regula Pastoralis to Archbishop Egbert of York),91 while Alfred demonstrated how relevant the text remained for those at the helm of the Anglo-Saxon church and state in the ninth century.92 Bede had written about the seven great kings of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, while in translating the Historia ecclesiastica into English, Alfred’s scholars added the king’s own grandfather Ecgberht (802–39) to the list, thereby creating the eight famous kings later known as the ‘bretwaldas’,93 as well as writing the West Saxons into a prominent place in early Anglo-Saxon history – just as they did in the opening passages of the Chronicle. Bede had chronicled Anglo-Saxon history up into the eighth century; Alfred had his scholars chronicle that same history up to his own day in what would become the ‘common stock’ of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.94 If Bede became the father of Anglo-Saxon history, Alfred became the father of Anglo-Saxon historical prose, and it is in his preface to the Regula Pastoralis that this persona is created. It is not only the ‘chronicle of the creation’ of Alfred as king and ‘author’,95 but also a portrait of the king as simultaneously author of the text and creator of the kingdom. Yet, rather than seeing the ‘writer’s power over readers’ as merely an analogy to his own power over his subjects,96 the writer’s power over the reader is, for Alfred, a means of establishing and retaining power over his subjects. 88 89

90 91 92

93

94

95 96

Foot, ‘Making of Angelcynn’, 32–3; Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, pp. 49–71. Keynes, ‘Tale of Two Kings’, 210; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 29–37; P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, vol. 1, Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 416–29. Hist. eccles. ii.17. Interestingly, the letter is not included in the Old English translation of the Historia ecclesiastica. EHD, p. 736. For a general discussion of the importance of Gregory in the intellectual and social culture of Alfred’s court, see A. Crépin ‘L’importance de la pensée de Gregoire le Grand dans la politique culturelle d’Alfred roi de Wessex’, in Grégoire le Grand, ed. J. Fontaine, R. Gillet and S. Pellistrandi (Paris, 1986), pp. 579–87; N. G. Discenza, ‘The Influence of Gregory the Great on the Alfredian Social Imaginary’, in Rome and the North, ed. Bremmer, Dekker and Johnson, pp. 67–81. P. Wormald, ‘The Making of England’, History Today 45.2 (1995), 26; S. Keynes, ‘Rædwald the Bretwalda’, in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C. B. Kendall and P. S. Wells (Minneapolis, MN, 1992), pp. 103–23, at 110–11. The project of compiling the chronicle was certainly the work of Alfred’s circle of scholars, though it was unlikely to have been a court production. Keynes, ‘Tale of Two Kings’, 197–8; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 39–41. Lerer, Literacy and Power, pp. 77, 84 and 85. See also Harris, ‘Alfredian World History’. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 64.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England A similar portrait of the king emerges from his domboc, which is inherently about judgement and power, and which is as much a work of literature as it is a work of legislation.97 The domboc is divided into three parts: an extensive Mosaic preface, Alfred’s own laws, and an appendix consisting of the laws of Ine (688–726).98 The preface is complex, carefully constructed, and in many ways parallels the preface to the Regula Pastoralis,99 so it is worth quoting at length. Þis sindan ða domas þe se ælmihtega God self sprecende wæs to Moyse & him bebead to healdanne; & siððan se áncenneda Dryhtnes sunu, ure God, þæt is hælend Crist, on middangeard cwom, he cwæð, ðæt he ne come no ðas bebodu to brecanne ne to forbeodanne, ac mid eallum godum to ecanne; & mildheortnesse & eaðmodnesse he lærde. Ða æfter his ðrowunge, ær þam þe his apostolas tofarene wæron geond ealle eorðan to læranne, & þa giet ða hie ætgædere wæron, monega hæðena ðeoda hie to Gode gecerdon. Þa hie ealle ætsomne wæron, hie sendan ærendwrecan to Antiohhia & to Syrie, Cristes æ to læranne. Þa hie ða ongeaton, þæt him ne speow, ða sendon hie ærendgewrit to him . . . I. Of ðissum anum dome mon mæg geðencean, þæt he æghwelcne on ryht gedemeð; ne ðearf he nanra domboca oþerra. Geðence he, þæt he nanum men ne deme þæt he nolde ðæt he him demde, gif he ðone dóm ofer him sohte. Siððan ðæt þa gelamp þæt monega ðeoda Cristes geleafan onfengon, þa wurdon monega seonoðas geond ealne middangeard gegaderode, & eac swa geond Angelcyn, siððan hie Cristes geleafan onfengon, halegra biscepa & éac oðerra geðungenra witena; hie ða gesetton, for ðære mildheortnesse þe Crist lærde, at mæstra hwelcre misdæde þætte ða weoruldhlafordas moston mid hiora leafan buton synne æt þam forman gylte þære fiohbote ónfon, þe hie ða gesettan; buton æt hlafordsearwe hie nane mildheortnesse ne dorston gecweðan, forþam ðe God ælmihtig þam nane ne gedemde þe hine oferhogdon, ne Crist Godes sunu þam nane ne gedemde þe hine to deaðe sealde, & he bebead þone hlaford lufian swa hine. Hie ða on monegum senoðum monegra menniscra misdæda bote gesetton, & on monega senoðbéc hie writan, hwær anne dom hwær oþerne. Ic ða Ælfred cyning þás togædere gegaderode & awritan het, monege þara þe ure foregengan heoldan, ða ðe me licodon; & manege þara þe me ne licodon ic áwearp mid minra witena geðeahte, & 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, & þa oðre forlét. Ic ða Ælfred Westseaxna cyning eallum minum witum þas geeowde, & hie ða cwædon, þæt him þæt licode eallum to healdanne.100 97

Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 416–29; A. J. Frantzen, King Alfred (Boston, 1986), pp. 11–21; M. H. Turk, The Legal Code of Alfred the Great (Halle, 1893), p. v. 98 See Wormald, Making of English Law, table 4.1 for a list of the manuscript contexts in which the domboc is preserved. 99 Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 428. 100 F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Tübingen, 1960), I, 42–6. ‘These are the laws that God Almighty spoke himself to Moses, and commanded him to keep; and when the only begotten son of the Lord our God, that is the Saviour Christ, came into the world he said that he came not to break these commandments nor to countermand them, but to extend them with everything good, and he taught mercy and humility. Then, after his passion, before his apostles set out to teach throughout all the earth, and when they were still together, they converted many heathen peoples to God. When they were all assembled, they sent messengers to Antioch and to Syria, to teach Christ’s law. When they perceived that these were not prospering, they sent an epistle to them . . . 1. This one law can one

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Alfred The preface maps the transformation of the law from oral to written form, while at the same time serving to document its divine origins in the word of God. What begins as a set of commandments spoken to Moses, an event commemorated in the feast of Pentecost,101 is extended by Christ to include not only the oral teaching of his messengers, but also the written epistles of his apostles: as the Word of God is incarnate in Christ, so the word of his laws takes on material, written form through the actions of his apostles and the mission with which they were charged at Pentecost. Laws are then fixed and judgements recorded by the bishops of the church and the king’s own ancestors creating a multiplicity of texts that by their very number and variety threaten confusion (on monega senoðbéc hie writan, hwær anne dom hwær oþerne),102 and must be gathered, edited and set in authoritative form by Alfred himself. The law, in other words, is a product of translation, preservation and editing. Alfred was not the only or even the first king to present legislation as a process of preservation and editing. In the Lombard lawcode of 643 King Rothari described a similar process of legislation in which the law was rooted in social memory and the traditions of the past;103 however, Rothari did not map the transmission of words and texts in as much detail as did Alfred, nor did he describe it as a process of translation. The process mirrors that described in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis in which the law (æ) is translated from Hebrew into Greek and then Latin, becomes fragmented as it passes into the multiple languages of the early medieval world,104 and is finally translated and clarified for all men (eallum monnum) by Alfred and his scholars. In the Mosaic preface Alfred once again draws a parallel between Christ and the good ruler. Christ came into the world to

101 102 103 104

remember, that he judges each man aright; he needs no other lawbooks. Let him remember to adjudge to no man what he would not be adjudged to him, were judgement sought over him. Afterwards, when it happened that many peoples received the faith of Christ, then there were assembled throughout the whole world, as also throughout the English after they received the faith of Christ, many synods of holy bishops and other celebrated wise men. They then determined, for the mercy that Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed lords of the world might with their leave receive without sin at the first offence compensation in money, which they then fixed; save that for betraying one’s lord they dared not declare any mercy, since God Almighty adjudged none to him who scorned him, nor did Christ, son of God, adjudge any to him who gave him over to death, and he ordered that one love one’s lord as oneself [or as Himself, i.e. Christ]. They then in many synods fixed compensations for human misdeeds, and they wrote them in many synodbooks, here one law, there another. Then I, King Alfred, gathered these together and commanded to be written down many of those which our predecessors held, those which pleased me; and many of them that did not please me I rejected with the counsel of my wise men, and ordered that they be observed in other ways. I dared not presume to put in writing at all many of my own, because it was unknown to me which of them would please those that were after us. But those that I found either in the time of Ine my kinsman, or of Offa king of the Mercians, or of Æthelberht who first among the English received baptism, those that seemed most lawful, I gathered them herein, and left out the others. Then I, Alfred, king of the West Saxons, showed these to all my wise men, and they then said that it pleased them well to observe them’ (trans. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 421–2 and 277). See L. T. Martin and D. Hurst, trans., Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, MI, 1991), I, pp. 170–3. ‘They wrote them in many synodbooks, here one law, there another.’ W. Pohl, ‘Memory, Identity and Power in Lombard Italy’, in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Y. Hen and M. Innes (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 9–28, at 12–14. And eac ealla oðra Cristena ðioda sumne dæl hiora on hiora agen geðiode wendon (‘Similarly all the other Christian peoples turned some part of them into their own language’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 6); Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 126.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England extend and to teach the law as established in the Old Testament, not to countermand it; similarly, Alfred is expanding the laws of his predecessors and making them known throughout his kingdom. He says quite clearly in his preface that while he may not have included all the laws of his predecessors in his domboc he did have them preserved and directed that they be observed in other ways. Pentecost was the feast which commemorated the passing of the law to Moses, and was also the biblical event that made it possible for the apostles to spread Christ’s law throughout the world by translating it into different languages,105 and it is no doubt significant in this regard that Pentecost was one of the feasts favoured for the making of law by Anglo-Saxon kings of the ninth and tenth centuries.106 For Alfred the feast may have had special relevance as it represented both an end and a beginning: the purification from sin and the entry into a new age.107 Of equal importance is the way in which Alfred uses the preface to the domboc to unite the past with the present and the future. The law that was given to Moses and the Israelites in Exodus was inherited, preserved and extended by the Anglo-Saxons, the new chosen people. As Nicholas Howe has shown, Exodus and similar stories of exile were adopted and rewritten by the Anglo-Saxons to form part of their own origin legend,108 a legend which the domboc presents as history. The very structure of Alfred’s laws, famously divided into 120 chapters, memorialised the relationship between Mosaic law and the law of Christian England. Of equal interest is the fact that it was based not on legal or historical necessity, but on a literary tradition.109 The age at which Moses died was 120, as was the number of the elect who gathered to choose the apostle Mathias, and the number who gathered at Pentecost.110 As he did in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis, so in the Mosaic preface Alfred also looks back to Rome and to the origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, but again the king’s memory and sources are selective. Alfred says that he gathered together the laws of his predecessors, but mentions specifically only Offa (757–96), Æthelberht (d. 616) and Ine (688–726), with special emphasis on his kinsman Ine. Together the three kings represent the three early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, Kent and Wessex, the areas over which Alfred was trying most strenuously to solidify control at the time that the domboc was compiled. Æthelberht, moreover, was part of the golden age of Anglo-Saxon England back towards which Alfred looked in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis. He was the king who received the mission of Gregory the Great, and he was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity.111 Of the three, however, Ine was by far the most important. It was Ine who had consolidated power in the south and west of England, and thereby laid the foundations

105 106 107 108 109 110 111

On the role of the Pentecost story in Alfred’s larger programme of translation, see Stanton, Culture of Translation, pp. 63–73. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 445–6 and tables 6.1 and 6.2. On the feast of Pentecost in Anglo-Saxon England, see M. B. Bedingfield, The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 210–17. Howe, Migration and Mythmaking. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 13. Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 417. Æthelberht’s queen, Bertha, was of course already a Christian at the time of their marriage.

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Alfred for the rise of Wessex; it was Ine who had travelled to Rome, had died there, and had gone on to reign with Christ in heaven;112 and it was from Ine’s brother Ingeld that Alfred was descended (as the preface to the Chronicle makes clear). Ine had used his laws as a means of both providing for and extending his jurisdiction over the people of the areas he conquered,113 and Alfred used his laws to do the same. In the domboc Alfred titles himself, like Ine, king of the West Saxons, not king of the English or ruler of Britain, and thus chooses to emphasise the continuity between himself and his predecessor, as well as the fact that his laws carried on where those of Ine, and to a certain extent Offa and Æthelberht, left off. He highlights this connection further by including Ine’s unedited code alongside his own, which in places contradicts certain of Ine’s judgements.114 Read together, the two texts demonstrate that at the same time that he is preserving the wisdom of the past he is modifying or translating it to fit the needs of the present. It is essential to remember that in his domboc Alfred was not explicitly claiming rule over a united England,115 but showing that the law in the areas over which he had extended his power would be based on the existing laws of those same areas. Southern England, as Alfred constructs it in the preface, was to a certain degree already united in its adherence to a Christian code of conduct. It did not really matter whether all the laws that went into the domboc actually were those of Offa, Æthelberht or Ine, or even whether all the laws in Ine’s code could be credited to Ine alone, so long as Alfred (the cyning) and the English (the Angelcynn) perceived that to be the case. That Alfred was perfectly capable of claiming a greater authority for himself when he chose to do so is demonstrated by the titles which appear on his coins and in his charters, as well as in Asser’s Vita Alfredi. In the domboc, however, Alfred suggests his rule over a united people through the repeated expression of the leadership of his witan (minra witan / eallum minum witum) at the end of the preface. This same style of leadership over a united people represented by the witan rather than over a united kingdom defined by territory is expressed in the treaty with Guthrum, written perhaps a decade before the domboc, in which he is styled leader of ealles Angelcynnes witan (‘leader of the witan of all the English’).116 The strategy is similar to that used in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis. In that text unity lay in language and in literary history; in the domboc Alfred opted to portray political unity as arising out of a natural (if fictional) unity of the English people (the Angelcynn), themselves united by their faith in Christ and hence by the English church. It is amongst the newly baptised Angelcynn that synods of bishops spread Christ’s law, and Æthelberht is the first on Angelcynne (‘amongst the English’) to receive baptism and to produce a written code of law. The English are once again more subtly united under Alfred by his rhetorical construction of a common past 112 113 114 115 116

Asser, Vita Alfredi, ed. Stevenson, p. 2; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 67. B. Yorke, ‘Ine’, in Blackwell Encyclopaedia, ed. Lapidge et al., p. 155 Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 103 and 278. Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 281. Wormald believes the domboc to date from after 893 because it is not mentioned by Asser in the Vita Alfredi (Making of English Law, p. 286). Keynes and Lapidge prefer an earlier date in the late 880s or early 890s for the domboc (Alfred the Great, pp. 39 and 163).

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England and a common memory. In the Mosaic preface the Angelcynn are portrayed as the heirs to the Israelites, and to the traditions of Rome and the early Christian church. Offa, Æthelberht and Ine may be kings of separate kingdoms, but they our also ure foregengan (‘our predecessors’). Moreover, just as the Angelcynn are united in their loyalty to the one law of Christ, they are united with their king, and in his law, through Alfred’s positioning of himself as a type of Christ and through Christ’s order that þone hlaford lufian swa hine (‘one love one’s lord as oneself [or as Himself, i.e. Christ]’). In the Mosaic preface, as in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis, Alfred also has one eye on the future. He employs a humility topos, stating that ne dorste geðristlæcan þara minra awuht fela on gewrit settan forðam me wæs uncuð, hwæt þæs ðam lician wolde ðe æfter ús wæron.117 Anglo-Saxon law thus remains rooted in the laws of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the same time that it is being both created and rewritten by Alfred. In the text Alfred portrays his role as one of merely translating one unified law out of many texts, a role paralleled by his attempt to unify the peoples of the south under one rule. Indeed, in the preface to the domboc we see once again the way in which the king is quite literally in the process of writing that unity into being, and rooting it in the textual authority of the past through the editing and translation of texts. It would be for future generations to adapt the law to the needs that would arise when unity became more than a rhetorical reality, to look back to the Alfredian origins of a united England just as Alfred had looked back to the origins of the kingdoms that would come to constitute that England.

ASSER’S VITA ALFREDI

In the Regula Pastoralis Gregory described himself as an artist who had created a fair and beautiful portrait of all that a pastor ought to be;118 in his Vita Alfredi, written in 893, Asser created a portrait of Alfred as all that an Anglo-Saxon king ought to be. Asser was writing whilst or shortly after Alfred was at work on his translation of the Regula Pastoralis, and indeed helped the king with his work, so it is not surprising that his own portrait of the king builds on many of the ideas present in Gregory’s text and Alfred’s preface.119 In the preface Alfred presented himself as the humble but strong leader of a chosen people; in the Vita Alfredi Asser presents him as a divinely chosen king. As James Campbell has stressed, Asser should be understood as an encomiast rather than a mere biographer120 117

‘[I] dared not presume to put in writing at all many of my own [laws], because it was unknown to me which of them would please those that were after us.’ 118 Loca nu . . . hu fægerne and hu wlitigne monnan ic hæbbe atæfred, swa unwlitig writere swa swa ic eom. (‘Look now . . . how fair and beautiful a man I have drawn, ugly writer that I am’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 467). Gregory actually describes himself as a painter (pictor) (Règle Pastorale, p. 540). 119 Asser echoes in particular Gregory’s use of illness, his lantern imagery, and his metaphor of the pastor/ruler as helmsman. See most recently Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’. 120 J. Campbell, ‘Asser’s Life of Alfred’, in his The Anglo-Saxon State (London and New York, 2000), pp. 129–55, esp. pp. 145–8. See also J. L. Nelson, ‘Wealth and Wisdom: The Politics of Alfred the Great’, in her Rulers and Ruling Families in Early Medieval Europe (Aldershot, 1999), no. II.

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Alfred because his portrait of Alfred borrows in places from the traditional language of saints’ lives; but it is also important to note that it should not be considered hagiography.121 Moreover, Asser’s portrayal of the king as both chosen by God and subject to human frailty is squarely in accord with Alfred’s portrayal of himself in the preface. The Vita Alfredi is dedicated to the king himself, suggesting that whatever other audiences may or may not have been envisaged, the king would have been familiar with the text.122 This is not the place to rehearse the various arguments for or against a Welsh or a court audience;123 suffice it to say that there is no evidence that the Vita was written with only one circle of readers in mind, but there is clear evidence in the form of the dedication that Alfred was likely to have been amongst its intended readership.124 What is most important for present purposes is the way in which Asser projects Alfred’s vision of himself as a learned king, and a king able to unite past and present, back to Alfred’s childhood thereby filling in the background to the portrait of the king begun in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis.125 The Vita Alfredi opens with a dedication that makes Alfred not only king of the English, but ruler of all Britain, or at least all of Christian Britain: Domino meo venerabili piissimoque omnium Brittanniae insulae Christianorum rectori, Ælfred, Anglorum Saxonum regi, Asser, omnium servorum Dei ultimus, millemodam ad vota desideriorum utriusque vitae prosperitatem.126

The combination of titles that Asser uses in the dedication is significant; Alfred is rector of all Christians in the island of Britain, but rex only of the Anglo-Saxons. Variations on the title Angul-saxonum rex (‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’) are repeated frequently throughout the Vita, reinforcing Alfred’s claims on both his coinage and in the rhetoric of his prefaces to be king over a territory that was not

121

122

123

124

125 126

A. Scharer, ‘The Writing of History at King Alfred’s Court’, Early Medieval Europe 5.2 (1996), 177–206; D. Pratt, ‘Illnesses of King Alfred’. See also Scharer, Herrschaft und Repräsentation, pp. 61–108. J. Campbell, ‘Asser’s Life of Alfred’; J. L. Nelson, ‘Waiting for Alfred’, Early Medieval Europe 7.1 (1998), 115–24. For a dissenting view that sees the Vita Alfredi as a forgery written long after the king’s death, see A. P. Smyth, The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great: A Translation and Commentary on the Text Attributed to Asser (Basingstoke and New York, 2002), esp. pp. 92–131. For the various arguments, see Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 56; Keynes, ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, pp. 42–4; Pratt, ‘Illnesses of King Alfred’, 7; Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No, King’, pp. 106–7. On the case for multiple audiences, see Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’. On medieval literary patronage and dedication, see K. J. Holzknecht, Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York, 1966); W. C. McDonald with U. Goebel, German Medieval Literary Patronage from Charlemagne to Maximilian I: A Critical Commentary with Special Emphasis on Imperial Promotion of Literature (Amsterdam, 1973). Although generally concerned with the later Middle Ages, see also the important cautions in J. H. McCash, ‘The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women: An Overview’, in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. J. H. McCash (Athens, GA, and London, 1996), pp. 1–49, at 2–3. On the text as a later forgery, see Smyth, Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great. There is no indication that Asser knew the Mosaic preface to the domboc, which has led Wormald to suggest that the domboc was produced after 893. See note 116 above. Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 1. (‘To my esteemed and most holy lord, Alfred, ruler of all the Christians of the island of Britain, king of the Angles and Saxons, Asser, lowest of all the servants of God, wishes thousandfold prosperity in this life and in the next, according to the desires of his prayers’, trans. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 67.)

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England yet fully united under his rule.127 In addition to adding support to Alfred’s own claims, the dual titles given the king in the dedication reflect Gregory’s (and Alfred’s) conception of a ministerial kingship, the idea that the king was both rector and regens.128 As Patrick Wormald notes, Alfred’s translation of the Regula Pastoralis sometimes used lareow (teacher) as a translation of rector, and that reccere was also used in places where ‘the original did not demand it’.129 It is also important to note that Alfred is not rector of all Britain, but only of all the Christians in Britain. Rulership is still defined here in terms of people rather than geographical territory, and in terms of the church in which those people are united. It is hardly surprising that Asser, a Welsh cleric, would use such a ploy. Much like the preface to the domboc, Asser’s preface constructs a picture in which both nation and kingship are inseparable from faith. Numerous sources have been cited for the Vita Alfredi, chief amongst them being Carolingian and possibly Irish mirrors for princes texts, the stories of Solomon and David, Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni Imperatoris, the lives of Louis the Pious, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica,130 but the influence of the Regula Pastoralis and Alfred’s preface are arguably the strongest of all.131 The Vita is structured to create the portrait of a king moving from ignorance to wisdom to a ruler with just the ideal combination of wisdom, justice, strength and humility outlined by Gregory. Chapters 1–21 give us Alfred’s genealogy and an account of the kingship up to Alfred’s brother and predecessor Æthelred. Chapters 22–41 present a portrait of a king in training. Asser takes us back to Alfred’s childhood to show the processes through which he attained first wisdom and knowledge of his ‘mother tongue’132 (chapters 22–25), and then military strength (chapters 26–41),133 and, moreover, attained both through divine inspiration or divine judgement.134 Through a combination of divine will and the unanimous voice of the people Alfred becomes king,135 and in chapters 42–87 Asser portrays him putting the training he received first as a child, and then as secundarius (‘heir apparent’) into action. By the time we get to 127

128

129 130

131 132

133 134 135

See, for example, Vita Alfredi, §§1, 13, 21, 64, 67, 71, 73, 83, 87. Similar titles also appear in Alfred’s charters: see Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 227–8; Nelson, ‘The Political Ideas of Alfred of Wessex’, pp. 125–58, at 134–5 and 155; Scharer, ‘Writing of History’, 186. See further R. A. Markus, ‘Gregory the Great’s Rector and His Genesis’, in Grégoire le Grand, ed. Fontaine, Gillet and Pellistrandi, pp. 137–46; Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 428; Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’, p. 108. Making of English Law, p. 428. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge; Nelson, ‘Ideas of Alfred’; Scharer, ‘Writing of History’; D. A. Bullough, ‘The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Aelfric – Teaching utriusque linguae’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 19 (1972), 453–94, at 455; Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’; D. Howlett, British Books in Biblical Style (Dublin, 1997), pp. 365–445; Pratt, ‘Illnesses of King Alfred’. Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’. See Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 65 on the gendered metaphors inherent in Asser’s description of Alfred’s progress to literacy. For a critique of Lerer, see C. A. Lees and G. R. Overing, Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 45–50. It is also possible to understand this section of the Vita as expressing a balance between the active and contemplative lives (Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’, p. 114). Divina inspiratione, §23; divino iudicio, §39. Ælfred . . . totius regni gubernacula, divino concedente nutu, cum summa omnium illius regni accolarum voluntate (Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 32).

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Alfred chapter 87, Alfred has demonstrated his abilities as a ruler by his defeat of one group of Vikings and his baptismal sponsorship of their leader, by his establishment of schools for the education of children in both English and Latin, by his having brought peace to his kingdom after a second round of Viking attacks, and by his having assembled a group of court scholars and advisors, amongst whom are the four named in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis as having helped him to implement his larger programme of translation and learning. In the remaining nineteen chapters of the Vita, and with the help of his circle of all-male scholars (in contrast to the mother who taught him as a child), Alfred learns Latin and becomes the translator and patron of the church that we see fully formed in the preface to the Regula Pastoralis and the dedication of the Vita. It is in this last section of the Vita that Asser’s echoing of Gregory’s and Alfred’s texts and ideals is perhaps the heaviest. It is here, for example that we get the extended metaphor of Alfred as helmsman,136 and the story of the making of his lantern, a metaphor for both the bringing of knowledge to light and the good ruler.137 More to the point, having finally acquired a complete grounding in Holy Scripture (chapters 87–89),138 and overcome the trials and tribulations of his infamous illnesses and the attacks of the Vikings (chapter 91),139 Alfred is now able to demonstrate his abilities as the just judge and ruler looking after the interests of all those under his care (chapters 105–6). In Asser’s final chapter we see the king 136

‘Sed tamen ille solus divino fultus adminiculo susceptum semel regni gubernaculum, veluti gubernator praecipuus, navem suam multis opibus refertam ad desideratum ac tutum patriae suae portum, quamvis cunctis propemodum lassis suis nautis, perducere contendit, haud aliter titubare ac vacillare, quamvis inter fluctivagos ac multimodos praesentis vitae turbines, non sinebat’ (Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 77). (‘Yet once he had taken over the helm of his kingdom, he alone sustained by divine assistance, struggled like an excellent pilot to guide his ship laden with much wealth to the desired safe haven of his homeland, even though all his sailors were virtually exhausted; similarly he did not allow it to waver or wander from course, even though the course lay through the many seething whirlpools of the present life’) (Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 101). Compare Alfred’s translation of Gregory: ‘To ðæm ic wæs gened mid ðinre tælnesse, ðæt ic nu hæbbe manege men gelæd to ðæm stæðe fullfremednesse on ðæm scipe mines modes, and nu giet hwearfige me self on ðæm yðum minra scylda. Ac ic ðe bidde ðæt ðu me on ðæm scipgebroce ðisses andweardan lifes sum bred geræce ðinra gebeda, ðæt ic mæge on sittan oð ic to londe cume, and arær me mid ðære honda ðinre geearnunga, forðæmðe me hæfð gehefegad sio byrðen minra agenra scylda’ (‘I was compelled by your blame so that I have now led many men to the shore of perfection in the ship of my mind, and still I am tossed on the waves of my sins. But I bid you in the shipwreck of this present life to reach me a plank of your prayers, so that I may sit on it until I come to land, and raise me with the hand of your merits, because the burden of my own sins has weighed me down’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 467). 137 Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King’, esp. pp. 112–13. Cf. Gregory I.5 (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 43; Judic, Règle Pastorale, pp. 144, 146). 138 Compare Alfred’s translation of Gregory: Ac eall ðiss aredað se reccere suiðe ryhte, ðonne he for Godes lufum and for Godes ege deð ðæt ðæt he deð, and ælce dæge geornfullice smeað ða bebodu halegra gewrita, ðætte on him sie upparæred se cræft ðære giemenne ymbe ða foresceawunga ðæs hefonlican lifes, ðonne singallice ðisse eorðlican drohtunge gewuna wile toweorpan, buton hine sio myndgung ðara haligra gewrita onbryrde; forðæm se eorðlica geferscipe hine tiehð on ða lufe his ealdan ungewunan, h[e] sceal simle higian ðæt he weorðe onbryrd and geedniwad to ðæm hefonlican eðle (‘But the ruler arranges all this very rightly, when he does that which he does for God’s love and for awe of God, and each day eagerly meditates on the commands of the holy Scriptures, that in him the power of the provident care of the heavenly life be raised up, which continually the habit of this earthly life desires to destroy, unless the admonition of the holy Scriptures encourage him; because the earthly community pulls him into the love of his old vices, he must ever strive to be inspired and renewed for that heavenly kingdom’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 169). 139 On the spiritual benefits of bodily pain see Gregory, ch. 36; Sweet, Pastoral Care, pp. 247–61.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England presiding over judicial hearings and examining the decisions of his judges in order to insure that they did not judge for amore vel timore aut aliorum odio aut etiam pro alicuius pecuniae cupiditate.140 Finally, Asser presents us with a portrait of Alfred, rector and rex in action, successfully admonishing his judges to apply themselves to exactly the course of learning set out in the Regula Pastoralis and its Alfredian translation: ‘Nimium admiror vestram hanc insolentiam, eo quod, Dei dono et meo, sapientium ministerium et gradus usurpastis, sapientiae autem studium et operam neglexistis. Quapropter aut terrenarum potestatum ministeria, quae habetis, illico dimittatis, aut sapientiae studiis multo devotius docere ut studeatis, impero.’ Quibus auditis verbis, perterriti ac veluti pro maxima vindicta correcti, comites et praepositi ad aequitatis discendae studium totis viribus se vertere nitebantur, ita ut mirum in modum illiterati ab infantia comites pene omnes, praepositi ac ministri literatoriae arti studerent, malentes insuetam disciplinam quam laboriose discere, quam potestatum ministeria dimittere.141

It has been argued that the Vita Alfredi is unfinished because of its abrupt ending,142 but this need not be the case. Asser ends the Vita when he has accomplished his purpose. The men of Alfred’s kingdom regret that they had not acquired learning in their youth, just as the king had once regretted the same, and they contemplate how much more fortunate the youth of the present day will be because of the king’s educational reforms. Alfred has overcome ignorance, illness and Viking attacks to bring peace, prosperity and learning to his kingdom; like the seventh-century kings Alfred invokes at the beginning of the preface to the Regula Pastoralis, he has prospered ægðer ge mid wige ge mid wisdome. Just as at the end of the Regula Pastoralis Gregory claimed to have painted a picture of all that the good pastor should be, Asser here tells us that he has given us a portrait in words of the character of the king: Sed hanc senum iuvenumque in discendis

140

Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 93. (‘Love or fear of the one party or hatred of the other, or even for the sake of a bribe’ [Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 110].) Compare Alfred’s translation of Gregory: Ðæt is ðæt hie ðara ðing ðe him underðiodde bioð for ðæm ege anum ðæs innecundan deman inweardlice undersece, ðætte si[o] mennisce oliccung for nanum freondscipe ðærto ne gemencge, forðon he bið to Cristes bisene and to his anlicnesse ðær aset. And ðeah for ðære geornfulnesse ðære ryhtinge ne sie he to hræd ne to stið to ðære wrace, ac ðonne he bið ongieten æfstige wið oðra monna yfelu, anscunige he eac his agenu, ðylæs ða smyltnesse ðæs domes gewemme oððe se dierna æfst oððe to hræd ierre (‘That he earnestly serve the cause of those that are under his care only for awe of the inner judge, so that no human flattery be mixed thereto for friendship, because he is raised up to serve as a type and likeness of Christ. And yet his eagerness for correction should not be too hard nor too rigid his punishments, but although he zealously judge against the sins of others, he also should fear his own, lest secret malice or hard anger profane the peace of his judgements’) (Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 79). 141 Asser, ed. Stevenson, pp. 93–4. (‘ “I am astonished at this arrogance of yours, since through God’s authority and my own you have enjoyed the office and status of wise men, yet you have neglected the study and application of wisdom. For that reason, I command you either to relinquish immediately the offices of worldly power that you possess, or else to apply yourselves much more attentively to the pursuit of wisdom.” Having heard these words, the ealdormen and reeves were terrified and chastened as if by the greatest of punishments, and they strove with every effort to apply themselves to learning what is just. As a result nearly all the ealdormen and reeves and thegns (who were illiterate from childhood) applied themselves in an amazing way to learning how to read, preferring rather to learn this unfamiliar discipline (no matter how laboriously) than to relinquish their offices of power’ [Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge p. 110].) 142 Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 56 and 275 n. 260.

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Alfred literis solertiam ad praefati regis notitiam explicavimus.143 It is difficult to imagine what more he could have said. Central to Asser’s portrait of Alfred is the king’s interest in and production of books, the king as author. Asser returns to this theme at four key places in his narrative, but it is important to remember that the neat symmetry of the episodes in the Vita may be rhetorical and need not reflect the exact ages at which or processes by which Alfred acquired literacy. In chapters 22 and 23, that is after Asser has given us the background to Alfred’s life, the future king develops his love for books especially English books, a love which will lead directly to his establishment of schools for the education of children when he becomes king (chapter 75). Once Alfred has proved himself as a good king he becomes literate in Latin and accomplished in translation, and thus becomes a teacher and model for the men who govern his kingdom. The first of these episodes providing, as it were, the origins of Alfred’s pursuit of wisdom, merits further consideration, not only because of its content but also because of its composition and chronology. On a general level it is in chapters 22 and 23 that Asser first presents us with Alfred the secundarius (‘heir apparent’), marked from birth by his parents favouritism, by his own abilities, and most importantly by the grace of God.144 More specifically in chapter 22 Asser informs us that Alfred remained ignorant of his letters until he was twelve (the legal age of maturity in Anglo-Saxon England at least from Alfred’s reign on),145 ending with a seemingly awkward note to the effect that he was skilled in all forms of hunting. In chapter 23 he goes on to describe Alfred’s desire for the book of English poetry offered by his mother Osburh,146 with the ergo of the first sentence of chapter 23 implying a causal and chronological link between the events recounted in the two chapters. While it has been suggested that the last sentence of chapter 22, describing Alfred’s abilities as a hunter, may be a later insertion because it seems to break the flow of ideas from Alfred’s developing interest in poetry in chapter 22 to his desire for books in chapter 23,147 it is possible to understand the two themes as related metaphorically. Asser does not specify that Alfred’s abilities as a hunter were limited to the physical pursuit of game, and it may be that he intended us to understand that Alfred’s pursuit of wisdom was paralleled, indeed perhaps symbolised,148 by his pursuit of the chase, traditionally a noble occupation.149 The hunting metaphor 143

144

145 146 147 148 149

Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 95. (‘But I have explained this concern for learning how to read among the young and old in order to give some idea of the character of King Alfred’ [Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 110].) As well as by his anointing by the pope, now accepted as a factual rather than a mythical event. See J. L. Nelson, ‘The Franks and the English in the Ninth Century Reconsidered’, in The Preservation and Transmission of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. P. E. Szarmach and J. T. Rosenthal (Kalamazoo, MI, 1997), pp. 141–58, at 145 and 154 n. 80. The legal age in Ine’s law code is ten. See above, p. 20. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 239 n. 47. Howlett, Biblical Style, pp. 388–9. The aristocrat in the lower panel of the west face of the Bewcastle monument, for example, holds a hunting bird as a sign of his nobility, as does Harold Godwineson in the opening scenes of the Bayeux Tapestry. In the Vita Edwardi Edward the Confessor is also presented as a keen hunter (see below, ch. 5), as is Louis the Pious in Thegan’s Gesta Hludowici Imperatoris 19, 200:4–10.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England appears again at the end of the Vita when Asser describes Alfred as an accomplished hunter (indagator) in judicial matters.150 Moreover, chapter 22 opens the section of the Vita in which Alfred acquires both knowledge and military prowess, so that his childhood abilities as both pupil and hunter foreshadow his later abilities as an educator and military leader.151 There is also a chronological disjunction between chapters 22 and 23. Alfred would have been twelve in 860, but the episode with his mother Osburh must have taken place before his father’s remarriage in 856 to Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald. Further, by 860 Judith would already have been remarried to Alfred’s brother Æthelbald, who succeeded to the throne at Æthelwulf’s death in 858. Why place the statement dealing with Alfred’s abilities at age twelve before the description of his earlier childhood? Again, part of the reason may be due to the introductory nature of chapter 22, but Asser may also have intended a biblical reference. Twelve was the legal age of maturity in the late ninth century, but it was also the age of Christ in Luke’s account of Christ among the doctors in the temple (Luke 2:47–52), the episode in which Christ demonstrates his knowledge and independence to wise men and to his parents alike with the words ‘I must be about my father’s business’ (Luke 2:49).152 No matter what the nature of the literacy Alfred may or may not have attained by age twelve,153 it is at this point in Asser’s narrative that Alfred demonstrates to his parents and teachers that he has mastered his mother tongue and is now about his father’s business, and that he is justly favoured.154 The episode has specific parallels with the lives of Solomon and David, as well as with the folk-motif of the ‘youngest brother alone succeeds on a quest’,155 but Asser may have desired to promote both the parallel with Christ, one that Alfred himself had already made in his translation of the Regula Pastoralis, and the fact that he was in so many ways marked as ‘heir apparent’ from birth because three of his four brothers had ascended the throne before him and, with the exception of Æthelbald, they had not been unworthy rulers. Of the brothers, however, it was only Alfred who possessed all the attributes of the ideal ruler. The model of Christian kingship that Alfred came to embody in his maturity, and which is made manifest visually in his coins and in the Alfred Jewel, is thus rooted in his own Christ-like nature and the divine inspiration and favour that set him apart from his brothers. It is further demonstrated in Alfred’s translations and laws in which the emphasis remains on Christian leadership and the parallels to be

150 151

152 153 154

155

Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 93. Asser has already warned us against the dangers of excessive piety at the expense of military common sense in the story of Alfred’s brother Æthelred, who missed the start of a key battle because he was praying (ch. 37). Howlett, Biblical Style, p. 388. In his forthcoming paper ‘Living with Alfred’, Patrick Wormald argues that Alfred remained illiterate until he had reached his fortieth year. The topos of the learned child is also a staple of hagiography. See C. Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley, CA, and London, 2001), p. 1. As noted most recently by Smyth, King Alfred, pp. 181–2. Smith cites Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, rev. ed. (Bloomington, IN, 1966), H.1242, iii. 484.

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Alfred drawn between obedience to God and obedience to the king,156 and it is picked up later in Asser’s own text in his metaphor of Alfred as helmsman.157 Of equal importance is the Englishness of Alfred’s early learning. As a child he liked to listen to English poetry, and it was a beautiful book of English poems that his mother offered him. According to Isidore of Seville ‘nations grow out of language, not language out of nations’,158 an observation with which Alfred certainly would seem to have agreed as in England a national vernacular literature and the concept of a unified nation were promoted hand in hand,159 and would continue to be promoted in a similar manner by Alfred’s successors. Asser, like Alfred himself, portrays the king as having quite literally created a nation out of language, texts, and the rewriting of texts. Alfred’s winning the book of English poetry looks forward to his concern with English literacy and the programme of translation that he would initiate in his maturity; and one might go so far as to say that Alfred here takes his place with Cædmon, ‘father of English poetry’, in the formation of a national literature.160 As Richard Gameson has noted, Alfred’s literary patronage was not unusual for an early medieval ruler, what was unusual was both his choice of texts (‘reading books’ rather than liturgical texts), and the fact that they were virtually all in the vernacular.161 What was also unusual was Alfred’s personal involvement in the process of textual production. He may have been a translator rather than an author in the narrow sense of the word, but translation is itself a form of authorship as it always involves choice and interpretation and rarely implies equivalency of meaning. Moreover, no other early medieval king is known to have been so personally involved in textual production as opposed to textual patronage. In this respect Alfred set the model for Anglo-Saxon kings for generations to come, though none, with the possible exception of Edgar, would be portrayed as so actively involved in the writing process. It is true, as Clare Lees and Gillian Overing point out, that the story of Alfred’s mother and the book silences the voice and agency of the maternal within the patriarchal agenda of the text, and within modern scholarship on that text,162 but in doing so it has no doubt served its purpose. Alfred was engaged in the project of writing a nation into being, and it is at this moment, the moment at which we see him moving from the childish, private world of the hunt and the maternal lap, to the adult world of his father, the world of war and witan, that Asser shows us that project beginning to take shape. Be that as it may, it has to be admitted that women do not fare well in the image of rulership that either Alfred or Asser create. In the story of the book and the letter Alfred’s mother remains unnamed, a fact that contributes significantly to 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

See above, p. 38; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 416–29. See above, p. 45. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), IX.I.14: quia ex linguis gentes, non ex gentibus linguae exortae sunt. Frantzen, King Alfred, pp. 1–10; Nelson, ‘Ideas of Alfred’, p. 135. See also K. Davis, ‘National Writing’. See further Frantzen, King Alfred; M. Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory 350–1100 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 416–17. Gameson, ‘Destruction’, 199 and 201. Double Agents, pp. 48–50.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England the temporal disjunction of the episode. Ealhswith, Alfred’s wife, remains unnamed throughout the whole of the Vita, although Asser does list the names of Alfred’s children, both sons and daughters. He also implies that at least one daughter, Ælfthryth, was taught to read both Latin and English at the court.163 The real problem, as has been noted frequently, seems to have been the West Saxon position towards the queen. The only named queens in the Vita are bad queens, or at least queens with whom fault can be found in one way or another. Judith, the consecrated queen of Alfred’s father Æthelwulf, marries her stepson, the treacherous Æthelbald, after Æthelwulf’s death contra Dei interdictum et Christianorum dignitatem.164 The description of Judith’s sinful second marriage comes only one chapter after the account of the foolish and murderous Eadburh, and the reader is no doubt intended to draw a parallel between the two stories. Eadburh, the disgraced widow of King Beorhtric of Wessex, fled to the court of Charlemagne where she chose Charlemagne’s son rather than the king himself as a husband and received neither as a punishment for her foolishness; Judith had come from the Carolingian court to England and married and then lost through death both an old king and his young son. Judith, as Joanna Story points out, was a cause of ‘dynastic unease’ for both Asser and Alfred at a time when the establishment of a secure West Saxon dynasty was a central concern.165 The most obvious cause of anxiety was the fact that Æthelwulf’s second marriage had threatened the rights of his sons and possibly provoked the rebellion of Æthelbald. Interestingly, Story suggests that the tale of Eadburh may also have provided a ‘sideswipe’ at Alfred’s sister Æthelswith who, like Eadburh, ended her days in exile in Pavia.166 Æthelswith, however, followed her husband, King Burgred of Mercia, into exile and there is no indication that she died in disgrace; Eadburh, on the other hand, ended up as a beggar in the streets. The fact that all these women were associated with Mercia – or in the case of Judith with the power of a foreign court – is no doubt significant. Mercia had a tradition of very powerful queens exemplified most notably by Offa’s wife Cynethryth who had not only been given the title of queen, but was also referred to as the dispensatrix domus, the ‘controller of the household’.167 Although no explicitly critical accounts of Cynethryth survive in texts dating from the reign of 163

164 165 166 167

What Asser actually says about the children’s education in chapter 75 of the Vita is somewhat ambiguous. He says nothing of the education of the two eldest daughters, Æthelflæd and Æthelgifu. The youngest son Æthelweard was trained in the court school to read both Latin and English: In qua schola utriusque linquae libri, Latinae scilicet et Saxonicae, assidue legebantur (Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 58). Of Edward and Ælfthryth he says only that they were cared for at court by tutors and nurses (cum magna nutritorum et nutricum), and that they learned, but not necessarily learned to read the ‘Psalms [presumably in Latin], and books in English, and especially English poems’ (Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 91): psalmos et Saxonicos libros et maxime Saxonica carmina studiose didicere (Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 59). ‘Against the prohibition of God and Christian dignity’ (Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 16; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 73). Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 111. Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 111 n. 70. Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 182 n. 53. But see also P. Stafford, ‘Political Women in Mercia, Eighth to Early Tenth Centuries’, in Mercia, ed. Brown and Farr, pp. 35–49, esp. pp. 38–9, for a discussion of just how limited Cynethryth’s power might have been, and how much it is likely to have been based on her status as the mother of the legitimate heir to the throne.

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Alfred Alfred, she is portrayed as an evil woman, even a murderess, in later saints’ lives and chronicles.168 Famously and uniquely for Anglo-Saxon England, coinage, possibly modelled on that of the Byzantine empress Irene (780–802) or possibly modelled on late Roman prototypes such as the coins minted in the name of the Empress Helena, was minted in Cynethryth’s name.169 The coins display a ‘portrait’ bust of Cynethryth on the obverse and the legend Regina M[erciorum] (‘queen of the Mercians’) in a neatly arranged pattern on the reverse. Eadburh, the Mercian princess who married Beorhtric of Wessex and was so censured in the Vita Alfredi, was Offa’s daughter and most likely Cynethryth’s daughter as well.170 Not only was she a sinful woman, but it was at her marriage to the West Saxon king that Alfred’s grandfather Ecgberht had been forced into exile in Francia.171 Given this Mercian gesture of support for their dynastic rival, it is small wonder that Ecgberht and his descendents may have harboured anti-Mercian sentiments. Both Alfred’s mother and his wife were of Mercian royal blood, and Alfred’s sister and daughter married a Mercian king and ealdorman respectively, but these marriages should be seen as part of the expansion of West Saxon political control over Mercia rather than as evidence for the fondness of the royal families of either area for each other. The lack of either anointing or titling of Osburh and Ealhswith may have been another means of downplaying the importance of Mercia during the rise of Wessex. The fact that Edward the Elder had to take sudden and most likely violent steps to remove his niece Ælfwyn from power in Mercia after the death of her mother demonstrates just how much prestige Mercian royal women continued to be accorded into the tenth century.

CONCLUSION

Despite the silence that surrounds Ealhswith in the Vita Alfredi, the image of the future king with his mother and the book that negotiates the narrative space between them is both crucial to the story and an image that remains etched in the reader’s mind.The interrelationship of texts in Asser’s account of Alfred’s learning, and in the Vita in general is also significant. In his Latin text Asser sets up the young Alfred’s desire for English books as a motivating factor for his later 168 169

C. Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066 (Bloomington, IN, 1984), p. 90. On the Cynethryth coinage, see C. E. Blunt, ‘The Coinage of Offa’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, pp. 39–62, for the suggestion that the coins are consciously copied from Roman prototypes; Grierson and Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, pp. 279–80 prefer a Byzantine model. On the presence and copying of Helena’s coins in Anglo-Saxon England, see J. P. C. Kent, ‘From Roman Britain to Saxon England’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, pp. 1–22, at 10; Gannon, Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage, p. 40. See also G. Williams, ‘Mercian Coinage and Authority’, in Mercia, ed. Brown and Farr, pp. 210–28, esp. 216; Stafford, ‘Political Women’, pp. 39–40. 170 The sources do not name Eadburh’s mother, but neither do they name Offa as having more than one wife. Given Offa’s concern with legitimate marriage and heirs who were the children of a consecrated queen, it is unlikely that he would have permitted an illegitimate daughter to contract such a prestigious marriage when legitimate daughters remained unmarried. On Offa’s attitude to royal marriage and familial politics, see Stafford, ‘Political Women’, pp. 37–8. 171 See Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 214.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England interest in the production and translation of books, thereby demonstrating his ability to do exactly what Alfred requested his bishops be able to do in his preface to the Regula Pastoralis, as well as demonstrating the overall success of Alfred’s programme. Beginning with chapter 23, Asser charts the process by which Alfred learns to read and write, a process through which he not only defines the limitations of memory,172 but one through which he also provides an example of the movement from simple recitation to full ruminatio.173 First attracted by the letter (the surface of the text), he is inspired to learn the words, and in due course to read and translate; that is to fully comprehend the meaning of what he is reading. As Alfred will translate texts, so Asser is here both translating narrative elements from a variety of sources, some of which, like Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis, will become key to Alfred’s vision of educational reform and of rulership, and documenting the movement from oral to written in that the king’s spoken words (presumably spoken in the vernacular) are transformed into the written (Latin) text. Asser thus becomes a mirror for the king, his ideas and ideals, and a partner in his construction of a national narrative. Alfred and Asser’s twin portraits of Alfred as ruler of a united England were of course propaganda in Alfred’s campaign to expand West Saxon rule over a larger geographic area. At Alfred’s death in 899 West Saxon abilities to make his ideal a reality were far from secure, and it would be left to his successors to make the vision of a united country more than just a vision. However, just as Alfred provided the framework on which Anglo-Saxon England would be built, so too he provided the image of kingship on which later Anglo-Saxon rulers were to base their own portraits. The relationship between the image and authority of the ruler and the book established by the Jewel, as well as individual elements of its iconography will reappear in the portraits of Æthelstan, Edgar, and even Emma. The iconography of Alfred’s coinage will also remain remarkably influential. But perhaps most enduring and most influential of all will be Alfred’s creation of the image of the king looking back to the past and inventing or reinventing a ‘lost’ golden age in the present, the image of the king or queen as a boundary figure who bridges and thus unites times, territories and cultures in his or her own person. The very awareness of history that these portraits exhibit serves to create a history and a sense of national and cultural identity every bit as effectively as the texts they accompany, and in so doing also display their origins in the Alfredian model.

172

Memory is for songs and poetry, but those things that one wants all men to know must be written down so that one does not lose their track. See the opening passages of Alfred’s translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies (Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 139); see also Nelson, ‘Ideas of Alfred’, p. 129. 173 Lerer, Literacy and Power, pp. 68–9.

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2 Æthelstan Alfred had been concerned to establish an English voice, self-image and history that could serve to unite the people he ruled with each other and with a ‘common’ past; his grandson Æthelstan (king 924/5–939) used methods very similar to those of his grandfather both to unite England geographically and to create an image of England as a power within Europe. Born in Wessex but raised in Mercia, Æthelstan, more acutely than Alfred, seems to have been aware of the value of boundary space and the ways in which it could be worked and manipulated to either break down or maintain difference. Like Alfred too, Æthelstan was keenly aware of the power of the book and of writing as tools in the expansion of his regnum, but where Alfred had used translation as his chosen medium, Æthelstan used inscription. Rather than portraying himself as an author of texts, Æthelstan added personal inscriptions and portraits to older manuscripts, or manuscripts made up of older texts, imprinting visual and verbal reminders of his presence, authority, generosity and faith on books donated to churches throughout his kingdom. Interestingly, Æthelstan’s inscriptions are themselves boundary texts in the sense that they are not integral to the books in which they appear, but are added, often in the margins or blank spaces, to pre-existing texts. They also serve to mark, indeed often to map, the space between the original owner or place of production of the book and the king’s court; or in the case of the one surviving portrait (fig. 4), the space between the present in which the manuscript was produced and the past in which St Cuthbert, its ultimate recipient, lived. Inscription can, however, also be a form of translation, and if we consider translation in its material sense, as in the translation of saints and relics, it is possible to understand Æthelstan’s inscriptions as enacting a different type of translation from that practised by Alfred. The inscriptions document the process by which Æthelstan’s books were elevated from the secular world of the court to the sacred world of church and monastery in which they were to remain enclosed – just like the vast numbers of relics that he is also known to have collected and given away.1 Further, the verbal formulae of the inscriptions more often than not invoke the legal language of charters, underscoring the role of the donation in 1

On Æthelstan’s relics, see William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, 2 vols., ed. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomas and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), §135; L. H. Loomis, ‘The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King Athelstan: The Lances of Longinus and St Mauricius’, Speculum 25.4 (1950), 437–56; M. Wood, ‘The Making of King Æthelstan’s Empire: An English Charlemagne’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. P. Wormald with D. Bullough and R. Collins (Oxford, 1983), pp. 250–72; P. W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 177–209.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England establishing a formal relationship between the giver and the recipient. The books, in other words, became a medium of exchange. The inscription added to the bottom of folio 5v of London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.v, a late ninth-century continental copy of the Acts of Constantinople given to Bath Abbey, records that the king gave the manuscript for the salvation of his soul and requests the reader to pray for him and his friends: + Hunc codicem Æthelstanus rex tradidit Deo et alme Christi genetrici sanctisque Petro et Benedicto in Bathonie ciuitatis coenobio ob remunerationem suæ animæ. Et quisquis hos legerit caracteres, omnipotenti pro eo proque suis amicis fundat preces.2

The date at which Æthelstan gave Claudius B.v to Bath Abbey is uncertain, but the very simple inscription in a demonstrably early donation to Canterbury (the MacDurnan Gospels, London, Lambeth Palace MS 1370) raises the possibility of a development of the medium of inscription from a straightforward record of the gift and its source,3 to something with a more complex quasi-liturgical function, a development which also suggests that Claudius B.v may have been donated in the mid to late portion of Æthelstan’s reign. London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.ii, a late ninth- or early tenth-century Ottonian gospel book given to Christ Church, Canterbury is likely to have been donated late in the king’s reign on several grounds.4 The inscription on folio 15v recording its donation lays greater stress on Æthelstan’s imperial style of kingship and on the duty of those who have received the book to insure its safety, in addition to offering prayers for the king: Volumen hoc euuangelii . ÆÐELSTAN . Anglorum basyleos . et curagulus totius Bryttannie . deuota mente . Dorobernensis cathedre primatui . tribuit ecclesie Christo dicatæ . quod etiam archiepiscopus . huius ac ministri ecclesie . presentes successoresque . curiosis affectibus perenniter agnoscant . scilicet et custodire studeant . prout Deo rationem sunt reddituri . ne quis in æternum furua fruade deceptus . hinc illud arripere conetur . Sed manens hic maneat . honoris exemplumque cernentibus . perpetue sibi demonstret . Vos etenim obsecrando postulo . memores ut uestris mei mellifluis oraminibus . consonaque uoce fieri prout confido . non desistatis.5 2

‘King Athelstan gave this book to God and to the holy mother of Christ and to saints Peter and Benedict in the monastery of the city of Bath, for the salvation of his soul. And may whoever reads these letters make prayers to the Almighty for him and his friends.’ The inscription is written in a tenth-century script which may or may not be contemporary with the donation. See Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, p. 160. 3 The inscription is written in display capitals on fol. 3v, and reads ‘Mael Brigte mac Tornain propounds this gospel-book throughout the world, in a manner worthy of God; but Athelstan, king and ruler of the Anglo-Saxons, gives it for ever to the metropolitan see of Canterbury’ (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 153–4 and n. 52). 4 Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 148–51. 5 ‘Athelstan, king of the English and ruler of the whole of Britain, with a devout mind gave this gospel-book to the primatial see of Canterbury, to the church dedicated to Christ. And may the archbishop and the community of this church, present and future, for ever regard the donation with diligent feelings, and in particular may they take pains to safeguard it, in as much as they are to render account to God, lest anyone hereafter, misled by dark deception, should try to steal the book from this place. But may it remain here in safe custody, and may it in perpetuity provide an example of glory for those looking at it. For I beseech you in prayer that you will not cease to be mindful of me in your mellifluous orations, as I trust will take place with harmonious voice’ (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 149–50). The inscription is likely to be contemporary with the donation as its language is very close to that of similarly dated charters. The manuscript contains two additional inscriptions. The first, on fol. 15r, is the poem Rex pius Æðelstan, probably composed after the battle of Brunanburh in 937 (see Keynes,

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Æthelstan The title the king adopts here implies that he is not simply practising a new and exalted style of kingship, but actively aligning himself with an imperial past and the glories of the heirs of Rome, as befitted an heir of Alfred. Basileus was the title used by the Byzantine emperors,6 and thus had connotations of an imperial grandeur to which even Æthelstan could only aspire – just as he could only aspire to rule the whole of the ‘Britain’ to which he was laying claim. We should also note here that exactly which areas or peoples constituted ‘Britain’ remain unidentified – something that would continue to be true for the use of the term throughout Æthelstan’s reign. Was Britain for Æthelstan simply synonymous with those parts of England that he did control? Or was it used deliberately to suggest a desire or intention to claim control over the whole of the island?

THE MANUSCRIPT PORTRAITS

The two known manuscript portraits of Æthelstan, both showing him before St Cuthbert, functioned in much the same way as the inscriptions. They provided a visual record of the donation of the manuscripts in which they appeared, and they were clearly connected with West Saxon expansion into the north of England, but they also portrayed the king as eternally present before the sainted recipient of his generosity, implying that his request for prayers, blessing and salvation had been heard and granted. Like the Claudius B.v inscription, the one surviving portrait of Æthelstan calls attention to his kingly status, while the manuscript it prefaces makes it clear that as far as Æthelstan was concerned he was indeed Anglorum basyleos et curagulus totius Bryttannie. The portrait of Æthelstan presenting Saint Cuthbert with a copy of Bede’s Lives of Cuthbert in prose and verse, and other texts (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183, fol. 1v) of 934–39 is the earliest surviving manuscript portrait of an Anglo-Saxon king (fig. 4). At a very general level its pictorial models lie in Carolingian art, particularly in the image of kingship created by and for Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald, and beyond that in the late antique and Byzantine models that influenced the Carolingians.7 Yet, the portrait is by no means as ‘thoroughly Carolingian’ in either its style or its iconography as some scholars have claimed.8 Carolingian rulers are shown receiving books, but rarely if ever donating them,9 and the portrait of Æthelstan alters the imagery of its ‘imperial

6

7

8 9

‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 150–1; M. Lapidge, ‘Some Latin Poems as Evidence for the Reign of Athelstan’, ASE 9 [1981], 61–98, repr. in M. Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066 [London, 1993], pp. 49–86). The second inscription, identifying the book as a ‘book sacred to kings’, was added in the seventeenth century, possibly by Cotton (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 111–12). On the title ‘Basileus’, see Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 445. The increasing grandeur of Æthelstan’s claims and titles suggests a deliberate programme, and control from the top, but see also H. R. Loyn, ‘The Imperial Style of the Tenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Kings’, History 40 (1956), 111–15. As, for example, in the c. 547 mosaics of Justinian and Theodora in the church of S. Vitale, Ravenna, or the mosaic of Constantine IV Pogonatus confirming privileges in the church of S. Apollinare in Classe of 668–85. Wood, ‘Making of King Æthelstan’s Empire’, p. 268. See Schramm, Die deutschen Kaiser and Könige. Most of the parallels provided by dedication miniatures (which may or may not be ruler portraits) are later (see J. Prochno, Das Schreiber- und

55

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England sources’ to suit both the nature and contents of the manuscript in which it appears, and the specifically English concerns of both that manuscript and the king for whom it was made.10 The manuscript portrait is also far more indebted to the larger image of leadership developed by Alfred, by the king’s father Edward the Elder, and by his aunt Æthelflæd of Mercia, than art historical scholarship with its focus on pictorial models has acknowledged previously. Æthelstan’s interest in texts and in learning is very much in the tradition of his grandfather, but his patronage of the church and of the cults of particular saints is more likely to have been modelled specifically on that of his aunt and his father who were both renowned for the political nature of their patronage of specific saints and monasteries.11 The personal presence of the king that both the inscriptions and the images establish in these manuscripts may also reveal Edward’s influence. Whereas Alfred had always been careful to portray himself as one with his people and his witan through the use of the collective ‘we’, Edward had added a new note of ‘personal royal will’ to his laws, a note which would be followed by Æthelstan and all future Anglo-Saxon kings,12 a note which may have carried over into other aspects of Edward’s reign, and one which can certainly be seen in almost every aspect of Æthelstan’s reign. The Corpus 183 portrait shows the king crowned, bowing, and standing beneath an arch as he presents the open book to the saint, who also holds a book, and stands in front of his church with his right hand raised in a gesture of acceptance or acknowledgement of the king’s prayers and gift.13 The colours of Cuthbert’s vestments may reflect those in which he was said to have been

10

11 12

13

Dedikationsbild in der deutschen Buchmalerei 800–1100, vol. II of Die Entwicklung des menschlichen Bildness, ed. W. Goetz [Leipzig and Berlin, 1929], pls. III and V). Rollason ‘provisionally accepted’ the identification of the king as Æthelstan, although he felt that caution was needed (D. Rollason, ‘St Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183’, in St Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200, ed. G. Bonner, D. Rollason and C. Stancliffe [Woodbridge, 1989], pp. 413–24, at 415). In light of the date of the manuscript and the evident similarity of the Corpus 183 portrait to the lost portrait of Æthelstan from London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B.ix, there seems to be no reason to doubt the identification of the king as Æthelstan (see further Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books,’ p. 180). See further below. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 288–9. If, as David Dumville and Robert Deshman have suggested, the Galba Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton Galba A.xviii) is to be associated with Edward’s court rather than Æthelstan’s, it may be that Æthelstan’s practice of reappropriating and recycling older manuscripts through the addition of new material might also have been developed under the influence of his father. During Æthelstan’s reign three quires were added to the end of the Galba Psalter, suggesting that if the book had been owned by Edward it eventually passed to Æthelstan. The small size of the psalter indicates that it was a private book, and the obits for Alfred and Ealhswith entered in the calendar suggest that it was owned by a member of the royal family. See Dumville, Wessex and England, pp. 75–6, and R. Deshman, ‘The Galba Psalter: Pictures, Texts and Context in an Early Medieval Prayerbook’, ASE 26 (1997), 109–38. For similar gestures in Anglo-Saxon art see, for example, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 23, fol. 37v, in which the Virtues use much the same gesture to acknowledge the words of Faith (E. Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, vol. II of A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles [London, 1976], pl. 156; cf. pl. 157), or New York Pierpont Morgan Library 869, fol. 9v, where John uses the same gesture to both acknowledge the death of Christ and direct our attention to the cross (ibid., pl. 171). For similar gestures of acceptance in presentation miniatures, see fol. 6v of the Vienna Dioscurides (Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, cod. Med. Gr. 1), the c. 800 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS phil. 1676 (fols. 18v and 19r), or the tenth-century Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Hs. 17 (fol. 12r) and Saint-Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Hs. 433 (fol. 22v). Keynes (‘Athelstan’s Books’, p. 180) mistakenly

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Æthelstan enshrined in 687: a white dalmatic, a chasuble of silk purpura, and an alb embroidered with gold.14 On the other hand, the colour combination may well have been traditional for those in high ecclesiastical office, as suggested by images in Carolingian manuscripts,15 as well as by the gold and purple embroideries generally assumed to have been commissioned by Æthelstan’s step-mother Ælfflæd for bishop Frithestan of Winchester (and also thought to have been given to Cuthbert by Æthelstan).16 Compositionally and iconographically the Corpus 183 portrait is similar though not identical to the lost presentation miniature added to British Library, MS Cotton Otho B.ix, a late ninth- or early tenth-century gospel book probably written in Brittany.17 While the portrait has not survived, descriptions written by Cotton’s librarian Richard James c. 1630,18 by Thomas Smith in his 1696 catalogue of the Cotton collection,19 and by George Hicks and Humphrey Wanley in 1705,20 allow us to reconstruct it in some detail. In the gospel book portrait Æthelstan is described as having been shown crowned and on bended knee, holding a sceptre in his left hand and offering the book to Cuthbert with his right, while Cuthbert is described as having been depicted seated in his church holding a book in his left hand and blessing the king with his right.21 The portrait was inscribed: SCO CVDBERHTO EPIS EATHELSTAN ANGLO RVM PIISIMUS REX

14 15 16

17

18 19 20 21

interprets the gesture as one of blessing, possibly under the influence of the description of the Cotton Otho B.ix portrait (see below). A. Thacker, ‘Lindisfarne and the Origins of the Cult of St Cuthbert’, in St Cuthbert, ed. Bonner et al., pp. 103–22, at 105. See, for example, the presentation miniature in the Vivian Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1, fol. 423r). The embroideries have generally been assumed to have been presented to the community by Æthelstan based on a list of the donations of King Æthelstan lost when London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.ix was damaged in the Cotton fire, and on a similar list recorded in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (for the text of the latter see below, n. 120). As both are later records their veracity is suspect, and objects donated by others may have come, over time, to be attributed to Æthelstan. However, it should also be noted that Æthelstan gave three gospel books to Chester-le-Street (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, p. 177), so that both or either of the later lists might have been copied from an entry, perhaps contemporary with the donation, in one of the other manuscripts. See further J. Raine, St Cuthbert (Durham, 1828), p. 109; The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), pp. 31–33, 376; D. Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), p. 146; R. Gameson, ‘The Decoration of the Tanner Bede’, ASE 21 (1992), 177–202, at 156; E. Coatsworth, ‘Embroideries from the Tomb of St Cuthbert’, in Edward the Elder 899–924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (London and New York, 2001), pp. 292–306, at 296. Keynes (‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 177–8) has questioned this assumption, maintaining that the lists were written after the fact, and may not reflect historical reality. For further discussion of this issue see below, pp. 75–6. J. J. G. Alexander, ‘A Note on the Breton Gospel Books’, in An Early Breton Gospel Book: A Ninth-Century Manuscript in the Collection of H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, 1887–1965, ed. F. Wormald (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 13–28. Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, p. 174 n. 154 and p. 175 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, James 18, p. 43). Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 171 n. 139 and 174 n. 153 (Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Cottonianae). Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 171 n. 139 and 174 n. 153 (Antiquae Literaturae Septentrionalis Libri Duo). It is of course possible that the saint’s right hand was raised in a gesture of acceptance, as in the Corpus 183 portrait, and that the gesture was misinterpreted as one of blessing.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England HOC EVVANGELIVM OFFE RT.22

A second inscription added in the tenth or eleventh century in a blank space after the chapter-list for John’s Gospel invoked the protection of Christ and St Cuthbert for the book, and threatened damnation to anyone who stole or damaged it.23 If correct in all their details, the descriptions of the pictorial composition reveal that the portrait in Otho B.ix was likely to have been closer to the usual ‘Carolingian models’ than the Corpus 183 portrait. The portrait of Charles the Bald in his c. 860 Prayerbook (Munich, Schatzkammer der Residenz, fols. 38v–39r), for example, depicts the crowned king prostrate before Christ on the cross, but again he is not shown offering the book. The emphasis on books in both portraits of Æthelstan is a new and apparently original Anglo-Saxon addition to the Carolingian presentation formula. In the case of the Corpus 183 portrait it is also one that we can see relates clearly to the content and function of that manuscript. It is generally thought that the gospel book (Otho B.ix) was given to the community of Chester-le-Street in the summer of 934 when Æthelstan made his expedition north into Scotland, though this is by no means a certainty. Simon Keynes has shown that the Corpus 183 manuscript could not have been donated at the same time, but rather that the king could have given the manuscript to the community at any point between the latter part of 934 and his death in October 939.24 The chronology suggests that the Corpus 183 portrait is likely to be reliant on that of the gospel book, and the similarities between the two portraits suggest further that they are probably the work of the same scriptorium, if not the same artist. Given this scenario the changes in iconography – the standing saint, the possibility that he was shown blessing in Otho B.ix, and the absence of the king’s sceptre – might simply be subtle ways of distinguishing the one portrait from the other. On the other hand, a gospel book is a much more formal and traditional type of manuscript than a collection of saints’ lives and other assorted texts; it is a manuscript symbolic of Christ, and thus one which might call for a saint seated as if in majesty with a king kneeling before him. The collection of texts in Corpus 183 is varied in its themes; it celebrates royal 22

‘To St. Cuthbert the bishop, Æthelstan, pious king of the English, offers this gospel book’ (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, p. 174). 23 In nomine domini nostri Iesu Christi. Ic Æþelstan cyning selle þas boc into scã Cudberhte . & bebeode on Godes noman . & on þæs halgan weres . þæt hio næfre nan monn of þisse stowe . mid nanum facne ne reaflace ne afirre ne nane þara geofona þe ic to þisse stowe gedoo. Gif þonne hwelc monn to þæm dyrstig beo . þæt he þisses hwæt breoce oððe wende . beo he scyldig wiþ God & wiþ menn . & dæl neomende Iudases hletes Scariothes, & on Domes dæge þæs egeslican cwides to geheranne & to onfone . discedite a me maledicti in ignem æternum et reliq. (‘In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I, King Æthelstan, give this book to St Cuthbert’s and enjoin in the name of God and of the holy saint, that no one remove it from this foundation by any fraud or robbery, or any of the gifts which I bestow on the foundation. If, however, anyone is so presumptuous as to violate or change this in any particular, he shall incur the wrath both of God and of men, and shall participate in the fate of Judas Iscariot, and on the Day of Judgement shall hear and receive the dread sentence, “Depart from me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire, etc.” ’) A. J. Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters (Cambridge, 1939), p. 48; Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 175–6. 24 Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 182–3.

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Æthelstan concerns, the life of a great national saint, and also West Saxon devotion to the cult of that saint. Compared to the gospel book it is both a more political and yet a more personal sort of book in its conception as well as in its meaning within the community that received it; therefore a more personal exchange between figures depicted as different yet equal might have been judged appropriate. There is in the Corpus portrait a marked visual balance between the king and the saint, the crown and the halo, and the different but connected spaces the figures inhabit, spaces that may further be intended to depict the separate but united realms of court and church, and spaces that are bridged through the gift of the book. The picture and the book construct a spatial and temporal unity by bringing together a king from tenth-century Wessex and a saint from seventh-century Northumbria in a single act, and in doing so they played their part in the very public orchestration of both the spectacle of kingship and the cult of the saint.25 Moreover, as Cynthia Hahn notes, saints’ lives (or libelli)26 that included illustrations could themselves become ‘shrine-books’ or relics: ‘they contained documents and records of donations to the monastery, apparently so that the saint would take particular care to ensure the security of any gifts, promises, or privileges recorded’.27 In the case of Corpus 183, the book was itself both a donation and a record. In addition to the portraits both Corpus 183 and Otho B.ix contained later material which included records of donations to the community.28 David Rollason has suggested that the open book and downcast eyes of the king in the surviving portrait indicate that he is reading the book rather than presenting it to the saint,29 but as private or contemplative readers are almost always depicted as seated rather than standing, this seems unlikely. The bowing stance of the king, the fact that the two figures turn towards each other, and the open-palmed, accepting gesture of the saint, are all traditional features of presentation portraits,30 while the depiction of an open book is a standard way of emphasising the display of that book, and perhaps also its production (figs. 7, 17, 21).31 In addition, it may be that this open book was intended to signify the very personal nature of the gift, and the tradition of learning on which it was based; this 25 26 27 28

29 30 31

On the development of saints’ cults as spectacle in the eleventh and twelfth centuries see B. Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge, 1997). See C. Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, p. 16 for discussion of the formation of a saint’s ‘dossier’, the assemblage of texts (and images) that formed the libellus. Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, p. 21. See also Keynes’ discussion of the texts added to Otho B.ix (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 174–9). The Hodiernus sequence for St Cuthbert, and a record of the grant of estates at Thornley and Wingate to Ealdgyth by Bishop Walcher and the monastic community is written on an end-leaf added to Corpus 183 in the late tenth or eleventh century. Otho B.ix contained four records of manumission entered on blank leaves in the late tenth or early eleventh century, and two Old English notes describing Æthelstan’s gifts to St Cuthbert entered in a blank space preceding the Gospel of St John. See H. E. Craster, ‘Some Anglo-Saxon Records of the See of Durham’, Archaeologia Æliana 4th ser. 1 (1925), 189–98; T. Johnson South, Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 6. Rollason, ‘St Cuthbert and Wessex’, p. 421; Rollason, Saints and Relics, p. 150. The idea is also taken up by Richard Gameson in his The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (Oxford, 1995), p. 256. See above, n. 13. Numerous examples are to be found amongst the plates reproduced in Prochno, Das Schreiber- und dedikationsbild; Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart; Abou-El-Haj, Cult of Saints.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England was, in other words, a book that had a special relevance to the king as well as to the saint and his community. It may be also that the depiction of two books, one open and one closed, was meant to convey the combined moments of giving and receiving, and to suggest the movement from present to past represented by this particular gift. The reciprocal nature of the act of gift-giving is here memorialised for eternity, which was no doubt very much the point of the gift. A similar sense of reciprocity and the telescoping of time is suggested by the paired books held by Edgar and Christ in the frontispiece to the New Minster Charter (fig. 7), and by those held by the monks of the Winchester community and Christ in the frontispiece to the New Minster Liber Vitae (fig. 17), and it is certainly possible that the portrait of Edgar was influenced in part by that of Æthelstan – just as the Liber Vitae portrait was in turn to be influenced by that of Edgar. The combination of open and closed books is fairly common in Insular and Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination, appearing perhaps most notably in the portrait of the evangelist Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.iv, fol. 25v), now thought to date from the early eighth century,32 where the open book in which the evangelist writes is a sign of active production, not contemplative reading (fig. 6). Outside of evangelist portraits the combination is repeated in details such as the multiple books in the images of the Trinity and of Ælfwine and St Peter in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (London, MSS Cotton Titus D. xxvii, fol. 19v; and D. xxvi, fol. 75v), or the books held by Christ and a monk in the frontispiece to the New Minster Liber Vitae drawing cited above. The relationship of the Æthelstan portrait to that of the Lindisfarne Matthew is particularly suggestive. Robert Deshman raised the possibility of a connection between the two portraits, but only in terms of their general compositions,33 while Bonita Cox has identified the figure behind the curtain in the Matthew portrait as a possible image of Cuthbert, with the implication that the saint is shown receiving the book being written in his honour.34 While there can be no certainty as to the identification of the figure as Cuthbert, the page as an image of textual production in honour of the saint may indeed be relevant. Aldred, who added the colophon and interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels at Chester-le-Street c. 970, stated that +Eadfrið biscop lindisfearnensis aecclesiae he ðis boc aurat æt fruma gode & sc« cuðberhte & allum ðæm halgum gimænelice ða ðe in eolonde sint (fol. 259), and that he himself hit of gloesade on englisc . . . + Matheus dæl gode & sce cuðberhti;35 but as part of that same colophon he also 32

Michelle P. Brown suggests that the date for the production of the manuscript ought to be pushed forward into the first quarter of the eighth century, the time at which the cult of Cuthbert was being ‘formalized’. See M. P. Brown, ‘In the Beginning was the Word’: Books and Faith in the Age of Bede (Jarrow, 2000), p. 25; M. P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London, 2003). See also L. Nees, ‘Reading Aldred’s Colophon for the Lindisfarne Gospels’, Speculum 78 (2003), 333–77. 33 R. Deshman, ‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, Art Bulletin 56 (1974), 176–200, at 198. 34 Bonita Cox, ‘The Book as Relic: The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Politics of Sainthood’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1995), pp. 85, 163. 35 ‘Eadfrith, Bishop of the Church of Lindisfarne, originally wrote this book for God and for St Cuthbert and for all the saints whose relics are on the Island. And [Aldred] glossed in English . . . Mathew’s portion for God and St Cuthbert.’ For a discussion of the colophon, see R. Gameson, ‘Why Did Eadfrith

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Æthelstan stated Matheus ex ore xpi scripsit.36 Regardless of whether the figure was meant to represent Cuthbert or Christ, or some one else altogether,37 Eadfrith’s association with texts produced in Cuthbert’s honour was demonstrably current in Æthelstan’s day. Bede’s prose Life of Cuthbert was dedicated to Eadfrith,38 and the prose Life in Corpus 183 is introduced by the rubric Prefatio Bede presbiteri de vita sancti Cudberhti Lindisfarnensis episcopi ad Eadfridum episcopum,39 while the text of the preface begins in the usual manner: Domino sancto ac beatissimo patri Eadfrido episcopi sed et omni congregationi fratrum qui in Lindisfarnensi insula Christo deseruiunt, Beda fidelis uester conseruus salutem.40 It is not unreasonable to assume that the identification of Eadfrith as the maker of the Lindisfarne Gospels, would also have been current in the 930s, especially as the gospel book, an important relic of the age of Cuthbert and Bede, and a symbol of the Church in early England,41 was in the possession of the community of Chester-le-Street at the time of Æthelstan’s visit or visits. It is possible that the king (or his artist) knew the opening Matthew portrait with its haloed and book-holding extra figure, and that Æthelstan’s portrait, while far from an exact copy of the earlier image, was intended to echo the idea of a book produced for the saint and his community. It is customary for the author of a saint’s life to be depicted in the manner of an evangelist, and although Æthelstan is not technically the author of the text and is not shown writing, he did as patron have a primary role in the production and gift of the manuscript. Moreover, Æthelstan is here using the image, just as he used the inscription in Cotton, Tiberius A. ii and other of his manuscripts, as a way of re-appropriating and rewriting older texts to fit changed circumstances, theoretically yet another form of authorship. The borders of the Corpus 183 portrait are also unusual, and may reflect a use of sources as complex as those of the image they surround. The foliate motifs that fill the eight separate panels have been compared to those found in the borders of

36

37

38

39 40

41

Write the Lindisfarne Gospels?’, in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Gameson and Leyser (Oxford, 2001), pp. 45–58. For an interpretation of the colophon and gloss as units of currency see Stanton, Culture of Translation, p. 50. See also Nees, ‘Reading Aldred’s Colophon’, 340–3. ‘Matthew wrote from the mouth of Christ.’ Cited in J. J. G. Alexander, ed., Insular Manuscripts 6th to The 9th Century, vol. I of A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles (London, 1978), p. 38. See also Gameson, ‘Eadfrith’, pl. 4. The figure has also been identified as Moses or God the Father (G. Henderson, From Durrow to Kells: the Insular Gospel-books 650–800 [London, 1987], pp. 121–2); and as a personification of the Old Testament (Brown, ‘In the Beginning was the Word’, pp. 16–18). Prologus beati Bedae presbiteri in uitam Sancti Cuthbert (‘the prologue of the blessed priest Bede to the life of St Cuthbert’). B. Colgrave, ed., Two Lives of St Cuthbert (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 142–3. The verse Life is dedicated to an unidentified priest named John, and its preface begins Domino in Domino in dominorum dilectissimo Iohanni presbitero B”da famulus Christi salutem. For the verse Life see W. Jaager, ed., Bedas metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti (Leipzig, 1935); M. Lapidge, ‘Bede’s Metrical Vita S. Cuthberti’, in St Cuthbert, ed. Bonner et al., pp. 77–93. ‘Preface of the priest Bede’s life of St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, for Bishop Eadfrid’. ‘To the holy and most blessed father, Bishop Eadfrith, and also to the whole congregation of brethren who serve Christ on the island of Lindisfarne, Bede, your faithful fellow-servant, sends greetings’ (Colgrave, Two Lives, pp. 142–3). P. Wormald, ‘Engla Lond: the Making of an Allegiance’, Jnl of Historical Sociology 7.1 (1994), 1–24; Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, p. 29.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Carolingian manuscripts, especially those of the Tours school,42 to foliate designs in the Galba Psalter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Galba A.xviii),43 a manuscript which is itself often associated with Æthelstan, to the foliate design on the back of the Alfred Jewel (fig. 3), and to the vine-scroll patterns decorating the Cuthbert embroideries,44 to strap ends from Winchester,45 to fragments of sculpture and wall-painting from St Oswald’s, Gloucester,46 to a fragment of sculpture from Wells,47 and to sculpture from East Stour (Somerset), Barnack (Northants), Colyton (Devon), Chew Stoke (Somerset), Littleton Crew (Wilts.),48 Prior’s Barton (Winchester) and the New Examination Schools, Oxford.49 None of the parallels is exact. The variety of designs in the Corpus 183 borders (no two panels are alike), distinguishes them from all the proposed parallels or sources with the possible exception of the Cuthbert embroideries; and no single foliate motif found in the border is exactly like those of any of the other objects, although there are some general similarities. It has been suggested by the excavators of the Gloucester site that the sculptural fragments from St Oswald’s Priory may be roughly contemporary with the Corpus 183 portrait, and may in fact have been commissioned by Æthelstan.50 If the Gloucester fragments are indeed contemporary with the Corpus 183 portrait, their similarities may reflect nothing more than the increasing popularity of lush vine-scroll decoration in the second quarter of the tenth century. On the other hand, it may be significant that the motif combined with figural ornament does seem to have been popularised on objects that are either known royal commissions or are thought to have been such. As early as 1974 Robert Deshman identified royal patronage as a crucial factor in the development of late ninth- and early tenth-century Anglo-Saxon art.51 Asser tells us that Alfred was intent on establishing royal patronage of the arts,52 42 43 44

45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52

Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, p. 38. R. Freyhan, ‘The Place of the Stole and Maniple in Anglo-Saxon Art of the Tenth Century’, in Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, pp. 409–33, at 424. See in particular Deshman, ‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, Art Bulletin 56 (1974), 176–200, at 193–5; R. Cramp, ‘Anglo-Saxon Sculpture of the Reform Period’, in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in the Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and Regularis Concordia, ed. D. Parsons (London, 1975), pp. 184–99, at 189–93; Gameson, Role of Art, pp. 253–6. D. Wilson, ‘Tenth-Century Metalwork’, in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, pp. 200–7, at 202–4; Hinton, Ornamental Metalwork, cat. no. 17; Golden Age, ed. Backhouse et al., cat. nos. 80–3, 133. J. K. West, ‘A Carved Slab Fragment from St Oswald’s Priory, Gloucester’, in Studies in Medieval Sculpture, ed. F. H. Thompson (London, 1983), pp. 41–53; C. Heighway, ‘Excavations at Gloucester, Fifth Interim Report: St Oswald’s Priory 1977–8’, The Antiquaries Jnl 60 (1980), 207–26, at 220–3; R. Bryant, ‘Sculpture and Architectural Stone’, in The Golden Minster: The Anglo-Saxon Minster and Late Medieval Priory of St Oswald, Gloucester, ed. C. Heighway and R. Bryant, CBA Research Report 117 (York, 1999), pp. 146–93; C. Heighway, ‘Gloucester and the New Minster of St Oswald’, in Edward the Elder, ed. Higham and Hill, pp. 102–11, at 106–8. W. Rodwell, ‘Wells: The Cathedral and the City’, Current Archaeology 73 (1980–81), 38–44, at 41. Cramp, ‘Sculpture of the Reform Period’, pp. 189, 192 and 193. D. Tweddle, ‘Anglo-Saxon Sculpture in South-East England before c. 950’, in Studies in Medieval Sculpture, ed. Thompson, pp. 18–40, at 28–9. West, ‘Carved Slab’, p. 50; Bryant, ‘Sculpture’, pp. 164–5; Rodwell, ‘Wells’; Heighway, ‘Gloucester’. ‘Art after Alfred’, pp. 193–5. Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 101, 102, 105 and 107; Asser, ed. Stevenson, pp. 77, 79, 85 and 88.

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Æthelstan and there is no reason to assume that his policy of patronage would not have been handed down to his children and grandchildren,53 nor that his grandson would not have been aware of the works commissioned by and for the courts of his predecessors. One can cite the revival of figural ornament under Charlemagne, and the references back to works associated with Charlemagne in the art of the court of Charles the Bald,54 or the use of foliate and floral designs as royal symbols by Charles the Bald and his successors,55 as well as on certain Islamic royal commissions,56 as instances of potentially parallel uses of imagery. If Æthelstan did indeed donate the Cuthbert embroideries to Chester-le-Street, the use of delicate vine-scroll set off against a red background and surrounding standing figures on the Corpus 183 page may have been a way of linking the one donation to the other. The stole and maniple I are embroidered with figures of standing saints and prophets, while maniple II is embroidered with a reversible design of gold vine-scroll on red silk. Even if Æthelstan was not responsible for the donation of the embroideries, the stylistic and iconographic links between them and the portrait (as well as the Alfred Jewel) may have been deliberate; a way of connecting luxury gifts to important bishops past and present.57 Alternatively, or perhaps in addition to any connection the portrait might have with the embroideries, Æthelstan is also likely to have seen the vine-scroll decoration of earlier Northumbrian monuments, such as the free-standing crosses at Hexham,58 during his 934 journey north, and it is possible that he may have chosen it for the borders of his portrait because of its association with the area in which the saint had lived. Clearly, however, such suggestions must remain in the realm of speculation. Whatever the specific sources of the design, inhabited vine-scroll was a traditional way of symbolising the tree-of-life or paradise, and thus of representing the eternal framework in which the king’s devotion was given and received by Cuthbert and his community, as well as the paradise that their collective prayers would hopefully help the king to attain.

THE CONTENTS OF CORPUS 183

Texts produced in honour of Cuthbert form the core of the Corpus 183 manuscript. They are combined with seemingly unrelated material and contemporary additions which serve to bridge the 250 some years between the age of Bede 53 54

55 56 57 58

On the influence of Alfred’s programme of reform on later generations, see Dumville, Wessex and England, pp. 198–205. See W. Diebold, ‘ “Nos quoque morum illius imitari cupintes”: Charles the Bald’s Evocation and Imitation of Charlemagne’, Archiv für Kulturgeschicte 75 (1993), 271–300; W. Koehler and F. Mutherich, Die Hofschule Karls der Kahlen, Karolingishcen Miniaturen 5 (Berlin, 1982). Schramm, Herrschaftzeichen, I, 373 and II, 412–15; Lombard-Jourdan, Fleur de lis et Oriflamme. A. Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian, and Pagan Politics (London and New York, 1997), p. 13. If the Jewel is indeed part of one of Alfred’s aestels it would most likely have accompanied one of the copies of the Regula Pastoralis sent to his bishops. See above, pp. 28–34. See Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, vol. 1, County Durham and Northumberland, ed. R. Cramp, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1984), II, pls. 167–175.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England (673–735) and Cuthbert (Bishop of Lindisfarne 675–87), the age of origins, on the one hand, and that of Æthelstan on the other. While Æthelstan is neither the author nor the translator of any of the texts contained in the manuscript, the technique of combining texts that relate the past to the present and emphasise the continuous history that joins the two is very much in the spirit of Alfred, whose translation of the Regula Pastoralis into the ninth-century vernacular had something of a similar effect. The manuscript also includes texts that convey a marked sense of royal ambition. In addition to the portrait the contents consist of: folios 2–56 folios 56–58

Bede’s prose version of the Vita Sancti Cuthberti Chapters IV.xxxi–xxxii from Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica dealing with Cuthbert’s posthumous miracles folios 59–60 lists of the names of popes folio 60rv the seventy-two disciples of Christ folios 61–64v archbishops of Canterbury (extended by Matthew Parker), and the bishops of Rochester, the East, South and West Saxons, Winchester, Sherborne, Wells, Crediton, the Hwicce, Mercia, Hereford, Lindsey, East Anglia, Northumbria, York, Hexham, Lindisfarne and Whithorn folios 65–67 regnal lists and royal genealogies of Northumbria, Mercia, Lindsey, Kent, East Anglia and Wessex59 folio 67rv text on the arrival of the Saxons in Britain beginning: Quando Gratianus consul fuit secundo et Equitius quarta, tunc his consulibus Saxones a Wyrtgeorno in Brittania suscepti sunt, anno .ccco .xlviiii. a passione Xpi. On the dimensions of Britain beginning: Brittania insula habet in longitudine .dccc. milia et in latitudine .cc. milia; et in circuitu habet tria milia milium et sexcenti. De trina incarnatione Cristi De annis Domini folios 67v–69v an untitled set of texts on the ages of the world and of man; the number of bones, veins and teeth in the human body; the dimensions of the earth, temple, tabernacle, St Peter’s and Noah’s ark; the number of books in the Old and New Testaments; the number of verses in the psalter; units for measuring distance; and the seven days of Creation folios 70–92v Bede’s verse Vita Sancti Cuthberti prefaced with a glossary of fifty-one difficult words found in it folios 92v–95v hymn,60 mass and rhyming Office of St Cuthbert composed in

59

See D. N. Dumville, ‘The Anglian Genealogical Regnal Lists’, ASE 5 (1976), 25–50; C. R. Davis, ‘Cultural Assimilation in the Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies’, ASE 21 (1992), 23–36. 60 For the text of the hymn, see I. B. Milfull, The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, CSASE 17 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 253–5.

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Æthelstan

folio 96v

Wessex,61 which borrows from Bede’s verse Vita Sancti Cuthberti62 *[added in the tenth and eleventh centuries after the manuscript arrived at Chester-le-Street] the Hodiernus sequence for St Cuthbert with musical notation indicating the melody Justus ut palma, maior;63 an inventory of church and kitchen vessels; a record of the grant of estates at Thornley and Wingate to Ealdgyth by bishop Walcher and the monastic community

The manuscript as it was originally presented to the Cuthbert community, that is minus the material added to folio 96v, not only opened with a visual portrait and closed with a textual ‘portrait’ of Cuthbert, but also revealed at its beginning and its end manifestations of his importance within Wessex which served to unite the present with the past.64 The bulk of the book is devoted to Bede’s two Lives of Cuthbert, and to the excerpts from the Historia ecclesiastica dealing with his posthumous miracles. The relationship of the portrait to the Lives is relatively clear, as is its general relationship to the excerpts from the Historia ecclesiastica and the royal genealogies and regnal lists included between the two lives. But the manuscript also includes a series of tracts on the incarnation of Christ, the number of bones in the human body, the dimensions of St Peter’s, and so on. It is in the relationship of the portrait and the primary texts to this ‘extra’ material that the coming together of past and present, ecclesiastical and royal agendas is expressed perhaps most interestingly. The inclusion of the excerpts from the Historia ecclesiastica dealing with Cuthbert’s posthumous miracles provides a textual parallel and an historical precedent for the exchange between the king and the saint visualised in the portrait.65 Chapter xxxi relates the story of the monk Baduthegn who was cured of paralysis after he had ‘prostrated himself before the body of the man of God, praying with devout fervour that the Lord, through Cuthbert’s intercession, would be propitious to him’.66 Chapter xxxii tells the story of a monk of Dacre whose diseased eye was cured by the relics of St Cuthbert, in which he had great faith. Æthelstan, like the monk of Dacre, clearly placed great faith in the relics of St Cuthbert, and while he does not have himself depicted as prostrate before the

61

62 63 64

65

66

Hohler suggests that these texts might have been composed for the court chapel of either Æthelstan or his father, Edward the Elder (C. Hohler, ‘The Durham Services in Honour of St Cuthbert’, in Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, pp. 155–91, at 156–7). M. Gretsch, ‘Cuthbert: Desert Saint, Saint of All England, Patron of the English Language’, unpublished paper delivered at the ISAS 2003 conference, Phoenix, AZ. On which see Hohler, ‘The Durham Services’, pp. 156–8. For a related use of Cuthbert’s cult in post-Conquest Durham, see N. Howe’s discussion of the poem Durham in his ‘An Angle on this Earth: Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 82.1 (2000), 3–27, at 21–3. Corpus 183 is the earliest surviving manuscript to contain the two chapters from Hist. eccles. While the miracles recorded in the two chapters do not occur in Bede’s prose Life, they continued to be included with the Life in later manuscripts (Two Lives of St Cuthbert, ed. B. Colgrave [Cambridge, 1940], pp. 20–39). ‘Prosternens se ad corpus uiri Dei, pia intentione per eius auxilium Dominum sibi propitium fieri precabatur’, Hist. eccles., pp. 446–7.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England saint, he is shown with bowed head in a pose of reverence and respect. Moreover, in the production and donation of this book, Æthelstan too, may have been praying for the posthumous help of the saint during his campaign in the North, or he may have been giving thanks for it, depending on the exact date of the donation.67 The excerpts from the Historia ecclesiastica are followed by the episcopal and regnal lists. Very few of the episcopal lists and none of the regnal lists or genealogies are brought up to date,68 no doubt because the manuscript is, at least on a basic level, concerned with the age of Cuthbert and Bede,69 and possibly because the lists might have circulated with other Bedan material.70 The majority of the genealogies and regnal lists either trace the various royal lines back from the seventh or eighth century to, or include a common ancestor in, the pagan Germanic Frealaf, whose name for an Anglo-Saxon audience would have meant literally ‘lordly relic’ or ‘legacy’.71 There is thus not only a divine origin, but also a sense of unity lying behind the creation of the separate kingdoms, a sense of unity that is reinforced by the rubric that introduces the genealogies: Haec sunt gen”logie per partes Brittani” regum regnantium per diuersa loca.72 The rubric highlights the fact that the lists define England both chronologically and geographically in terms of the people who inhabit the land (the episcopal lists of course do the same for the English church), and it also suggests that while Britain may be composed of many parts it is ultimately one country. However, just as the many kingdoms all had their origins in a single ancestor, so too they are now to be reunited with Cuthbert’s help in Æthelstan’s united kingdom. It is certainly significant that it was just at this time (933–38) that Æthelstan’s Crowned Bust coinage was introduced throughout most of England (fig. 5); the first 67

68

69

70

71 72

On the importance of prayer and piety (and the translation of relics) in association with battle in the Carolingian world see Buc, Dangers of Ritual, pp. 61–2; E. J. Goldberg, ‘Frontier Kingship, Martial Ritual, and Early Knighthood at the Court of Louis the German’, Viator 30 (1999), 41–78. The story of Alfred’s brother Æthelred, however, demonstrates that piety in battle could be taken too far (see above, p. 48). The episcopal lists for Winchester, Ramsbury, Wells, Sherborne, and Crediton are continued into the tenth century. The inclusion of the names of Ælfheah of Winchester and Æthelgar of Crediton, both of whom succeeded to their bishoprics in 934, if not later additions, establishes a terminus post quem for the manuscript (Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 182–3). As in British Library, Cotton Vespasian B.vi, the Mercian genealogies have been extended into the ninth century. On the relationship between the two manuscripts, see Dumville, ‘Anglian Genealogies’; S. Keynes, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Handbook: British Library, Cotton Vespasian B. vi, fols. 104–9’, forthcoming. A key difference between Vespasian B.vi and Corpus 183 is that the latter includes the genealogy of the West Saxon kings and the former does not. See Cotton Vespasian B.vi, which includes a Carolingian copy of Bede’s De temporum ratione, and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2825, which includes a verse copy of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert. The contents of Vespasian B.vi were brought together in Cotton’s library (Dumville, ‘Anglian Genealogies’, p. 25 n. 4 and ‘Addenda’, p. 4; Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon Handbook’), but we know nothing of the context in which the scholastic material included in Vespasian B.vi, and copied in different order and with significant emendations in Corpus 183, first circulated. The genealogy for Lindsey extends beyond Frealaf back to Geat. ‘These are the genealogies of the kings reigning in different places in different parts of Britain’ (Dumville ‘Anglian Genealogies’, 32). The same rubric introduces the related genealogies in British Library, Cotton Vespasian B.vi, and British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.v (ibid., pp. 30 and 35), although the contents of the genealogies differ – most notably in the inclusion of the genealogy of the kings of Wessex from Ine to Frealaf in Corpus 183.

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Æthelstan Anglo-Saxon coinage to depict a crowned king, and a coinage on which, as in his charters, Æthelstan styled himself Rex totius Britaniae (‘King of the whole of Britain’).73 On the coins, as in the manuscript portrait, the king wears an unusual crown consisting of a circular band with three prongs, each surmounted by a globule,74 and he wears a similar cloak fastened by a brooch on his right shoulder. The introduction of the Crowned Bust coinage and the creation of the two portraits of the prominently crowned king also coincide with the first concrete evidence of ‘festival court-holding’, no doubt complete with an impressively crowned king.75 The theme of origins in Corpus 183 continues with the tract on the arrival of the Saxons in Britain and the measurements of the island that was once and will again be theirs, which immediately follows the genealogies without rubric or other form of interruption. The measurements are those recorded by Bede in the Historia ecclesiastica (I.i), and thus they help once again to bridge the gap between kingdoms past and present, the island ruled by the earliest Saxon kings and the island ruled by Æthelstan.76 Unity has been formed, or in this case ‘restored’, out of multiplicity, and the recording of the measurements of the island serves to map the area over which Æthelstan now claims to be expanding his dominion.77 The various texts on number and measurement extend this unity on a microcosmic scale to the human body itself (with its bones, veins and teeth) and on a macrocosmic scale to Christ and Creation, a Creation in which both the human body and the kingdom(s) of the Anglo-Saxons have their ordained and measured place.78 The set of texts which follows, running from the incarnation of Christ through the ages of the world and ending with Creation,79 and which quite 73

74 75

76

77 78

79

The Crowned Bust coinage was not introduced in Mercia or Northumbria (except for a brief issue at York). See C. E. Blunt, ‘The Coinage of Æthelstan, 924–939: A Survey’, British Numismatic Jnl 42 (special vol. 1974), pp. 41 and 57. A point noted by Blunt, ‘Coinage of Æthelstan’, p. 47. See Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 434–5; M. Hare, ‘Kings, Crowns and Festivals: The Origins of Gloucester as a Royal Ceremonial Centre’, in Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucester Archaeological Society 115 (1997), 41–78, at 46. The evidence is provided by a series of charters written by the scribe ‘Æthelstan A’ which contain precise details as to where and when they were written. The source of Bede’s description of the island is to be found in Pliny and in Gildas (see in particular, Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. M. Winterbottom [London, 1978], pp. 16, 89–90), but given the nature of this manuscript it is undoubtedly the place of the passage at the beginning of the Historia ecclesiastica that is crucial. On textual practices of mapping in Anglo-Saxon England, see Howe, ‘An Angle on this Earth’, esp. 8–9; Warren, History on the Edge. On lists and compilations as a means of ordering knowledge and expressing physical order, see F. Robinson, ‘Old English Literature in its Most Immedieate Context’, in Old English Literature in Context, ed. J. D. Niles (Totowa, NJ, 1980), pp. 11–29; Lerer, Literacy and Power, 97–125. While some of the same tracts occur in British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian B.vi, they occur in a different order, and a different context, and reflect a different agenda. Fols. 104–9 of Vespasian B.vi contain: (1) the ‘Metrical Calendar of York’, (2) a concordance of Greek and Roman numerals, (3) the tract on the arrival of the Saxons in Britain, (4) notes on the ages of the world, (5) a list of rulers from Abraham to the Babylonian exile, (6) notes on the dimensions of the Temple, Tabernacle, St Peter’s, Noah’s Ark; the number of bones, veins and teeth in the human body, the Hebrew names for the months, notes on weights, values of coins and measures in Greek and Hebrew; the duration of the ages of man; verses on the names of the days of the week, (7) a list of the popes from Peter on, (8) a list of the disciples of Christ, (9) the episcopal lists, (10) the ‘Anglian collection’ of royal genealogies. Keynes (‘Anglo-Saxon Handbook’) suggests that Vespasian B.vi. may represent ‘not royal propaganda as such,

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England literally marked the beginning of West Saxon official history, might further be intended as a complex and rhetorically embellished reference to the West Saxon genealogies recorded in Asser’s Vita Alfredi and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which extend the origins of the West Saxons beyond the pagan gods to the Creation of Adam and to Christ, present in and before Creation.80 That these texts were perceived as providing a type of written map by the Anglo-Saxons is clear from the fact that London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B.v (produced in the second quarter of the eleventh century), the manuscript that contains the one surviving Anglo-Saxon mappamundi, also contains, among other things, lists of the popes, lists of Anglo-Saxon bishops and regnal lists,81 uniting the textual with the visual, and providing both a history and a claim to jurisdiction defined by both the land and its people. Like Alfred, Æthelstan was actively expanding the map of the England he ruled via texts.

DEVOTION AND THE WRITING AND REWRITING OF HISTORY

Æthelstan’s devotion to Cuthbert was undoubtedly central to his vision of kingship and to his vision of a unified England. Both the vision and the way in which Æthelstan went about making it a historical reality were themselves historically derived, and connected specifically to precedents of patronage and devotion established by Alfred, Æthelflæd and Edward the Elder. It is just possible that Æthelstan knew the story of Cuthbert appearing to Alfred before his victory over the Vikings at the battle of Edington in 878,82 and that his visit to Chesterle-Street in 934 was designed to re-enlist the blessing of the saint on the West Saxon cause during his own military campaign in the North; but it must be admitted that this scenario is unlikely. The story is first recorded in the eleventh-century Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. Ecce lumen magnum sicut sol refulsit, et in ipso lumine senex sacerdos infulatus nigris quidem capillis, habens in dextera manu euangelii textum auro gemmisque ornatum but a view of legitimate kingship from the headquarters of the church in Britain [Canterbury]’. Corpus 183 makes use of the same material to represent a similar view from the perspective of the king. 80 On se ‹þelwulf wæs Ecgbrehtin‘g’, Ecgbryht Ealhmunding, Ealhmund Eafing, Eafa Eopping, Eoppa Ingilding; Ingild wæs Ines broþur Westseaxna cyninges, þæs þe eft ferde to Sancte Petre & þær eft his feorh gesealde; & hie wæron Cenredes suna, Cenred wæs Ceolwalding, Ceolwald Cuþaing, Cuþa Cuþwining, Cuþ‘wine’ Ceaulining, Ceawlin Cynricing, Cynric Cerdicing, Cerdic Elesing, Elesa Esling, Esla Giwising, Gewis Wiging, Wig Freawining, Freawine Friþogaring, Friþogar Bronding, Brond B”ldæging, B”ldæg Wodening, Woden Friþowalding, Friþuwald Freawining, Frealaf Friþuwulfing, Friþuwulf Finning, Fin Godwulfing, Godwulf Geating, Geat T”twaing, T”twa Beawing, Beaw Sceldwaing, Sceldwea Heremoding, Heremod Itermoning, Itermon Hraþraing, se wæs geboren in þære earce, Noe, Lamach, Matusalem, Enoh, Iaered, Maleel, Camon, Enos, Sed, Adam primus homo; et pater noster est Christus, amen. See Bately, ed., MS A, s.a. 855. The same genealogy is recorded s.a. 855 in MSS D and E; 856 in MSS C and F. And see above, p. 18. 81 Howe, ‘Angle’, 12–13; Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon Handbook’. 82 According to Keynes and Lapidge, the earliest surviving version of the story is found in a ‘mid-eleventh-century or later’ interpolation in the anonymous Historia de Sancto Cuthberto originally compiled in the mid-tenth century. See now Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, ed. Johnson South. The story is also recorded by William of Malmesbury (Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 211–12).

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Æthelstan apparuit, et sic eum uigilantem cum his uerbis benedixit, et ab eo diligenter inquisitus quis esset et quomodo nominaretur: ‘Care,’ inquit, ‘Elfrede, letus esto, ego sum ille cui hodie cibum praebuisti caritatiue, uocor autem Cuthbertus Christi miles. Esto robustus, et attende diligenter et laeto animo quod tibi dixero. Nam ego deinceps ero scutum tuum et amicus tuus et defensor filiorum tuorum, et nunc dicam quid tibi post hac sit agendum. Surge summo diluculo, sona fortiter cornu tribus uicibus, ut inimici tui audiant et expauescant, et circa horam nonam habebis quingentos armatos, et hoc signo credas quod post septem dies habebis Dei dono et meo auxilio totum huius terrae exercitum apud montem Assandune in auxilio tuo paratum. Sicque contra hostes tuos pugnabis, et sine dubio eos superabis. Post haec esto letus et robustus sine timore quia Deus tradidit inimicos tuos in manibus tuis, et totam istam terram et regnum hereditarium, tibi et filiis tuis er filiis filiorum tuorum. Esto fidelis mihi et populo meo, quia tibi et filiis tuis data est tota Albion. Esto iustus, quia tu es electus rex totius Brittanniae.’83

The last lines of the passage in which Cuthbert grants ‘all Britain’ (=Albion) to Alfred, his sons, and the sons of his sons, recall the Lord’s covenant with Abraham, and suggest surely that this version of the story was written with the benefit of hindsight rather than with the gift of prophecy.84 Luisella Simpson has argued that the episode had its origins in the mid-tenth century, in which case the legend may itself have been a product of rather than the motivation for the patronage of Chester-le-Street by Æthelstan and his successor Edmund (939–46), a way of reworking the past in order to harmonise it with contemporary concerns.85 Ted Johnson South places the origins of the story later still, arguing that it is an eleventh-century invention, the result of a similar reworking of the past, but at a slightly later date.86 It might be significant in this respect that the phrase ‘God and St Cuthbert’, a repetition of the phrase used by Aldred in the Lindisfarne Gospels colophon,87 and perhaps an echo of the invocation of Cuthbert and God by Æthelstan in the inscription added to Otho B.ix,88 occurs five times in sections 17–19a of the Historia, the sections dealing with Alfred and

83

84

85 86 87 88

‘Behold, a great light shone like the sun, and within that light appeared an old priest wearing a bishop’s insignia and with black hair, holding in his right hand a gospel-book ornamented with gold and gems. He blessed the wakeful one with these [following] words, and, asked by him respectfully who he might be and what his name was, he replied, “Dear Alfred, be glad: I am the one to whom today you charitably gave food, and I am called Cuthbert, soldier of Christ. Be strong, and attend diligently and with a glad spirit to what I shall say to you. For henceforth I will be your shield and your friend and the defender of your sons, and now I will tell you what is to be done hereafter. Arise at dawn, sound [your] horn loudly three times so that your enemies may hear and be terrified, and by the ninth hour you will have five hundred armed men; by this sign believe that after seven days you will have, by God’s gift and with my aid, the whole army of this land prepared to aid you at the hill of Assandune. And so you shall fight against your enemies, and without doubt you will overcome them. Afterwards be joyful and strong without fear, since God has delivered your enemies into your hands, and likewise all this land, and [established] hereditary rule for you and your sons and the sons of your sons. Be faithful to me and to my people, for all Albion has been given to you and your sons. Be just for you are chosen King of all Britain” ’ (Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 54–7). The terms ‘Albion’ and ‘Britain’ are again left tantalisingly undefined in this text, perhaps because as regards territory they would have meant something very different to Alfred than to Æthelstan, and something else again to the mid-eleventh-century authors of the text. L. Simpson, ‘The King Alfred/St Cuthbert Episode in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto: Its Significance for Mid-Tenth-Century English History’, in St Cuthbert, ed. Bonner et al., pp. 397–411. Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 31 and 35–6. See above, p. 60. See above, p. 57.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Edward’s devotion to the saint.89 The phrase is used only once in sections 1–16, and only four times in the final fifteen sections of the text (sections 20–34).90 Aldred’s colophon and gloss were as much political acts designed to strengthen the cult and its ‘tradition’ of royal patronage as they were acts of devotion, and it is possible that the noticeable repetition of Aldred’s ‘God and St Cuthbert’ in the section of the Historia dealing with the West Saxon kings indicates that it was composed not long after the gloss. In fact, Lawrence Nees has recently suggested that Aldred’s gloss and colophon should be understood in the context of Æthelstan’s gifts of gospel books, and specifically his presentation to Cuthbert of older materials recycled ‘by means of new inscriptions’.91 Whatever the case, it is clear that Æthelstan’s portraits and his gifts to the community stand at the start of a tradition, and it is surely significant that in the Alfred/Cuthbert episode Cuthbert appears before the king holding in dextera manu euangelii textum auro gemmisque ornatum,92 a vision that calls to mind both the Lindisfarne Gospels with its original gold and gem studded cover,93 and the image of the saint in the Æthelstan portraits. On the other hand, Hohler’s opinion that the mass and rhyming office in honour of St Cuthbert in Corpus 183 might have been composed for use at Edward’s court sounds a note of caution. According to the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, Alfred recounted his dream to his son Edward, advising him to be faithful to God and St Cuthbert, and not to be afraid of his enemies.94 He also, at his death, requested that Edward donate two armlets and a golden thurible to the saint, and advised him for a final time to love God and St Cuthbert.95 In turn, at his own death Edward filium suum Æthelstanum uocauit, eique regnum suum tradidit, et ut sanctum Cuthbertum diligeret et supra omnes sanctos honoraret diligenter inculcauit, notificans ei qualiter patri suo regi Elfredo in paupertate et in exilio misericorditer subuenisset et

89

90

91 92 93 94 95

Tunc Elfredus gratias egit Deo et sancto Cuthberto (‘Then Alfred gave thanks to God and St Cuthbert’); per donum Dei et auxilium sancti Cuthberti (‘through the gift of God and St Cuthbert’); per donum Dei et auxilium sancti Cutherti (again ‘through the gift of God and St Cuthbert’, p. 56); Ammonuit etiam filium suum Eadwardum qui ibi erat, quod si uellet esse fidelis Deo et sancto Cuthberto, non ei esset timendum de inimicis suis (‘He also advised his son Edward, who was there, that if he wished to be faithful to God and St Cuthbert, he should not be afraid of his enemies’); monuitque eum diligenter ut amaret Deum et sanctum Cuthbertum (‘and admonished him diligently to love God and St Cuthbert’). See Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 56–9. Section 22: Tunc episcopus Cutheardus, pro caritate Dei et amore sancti Cuthberti, praestitit illi has uillas (‘The Bishop Cutheard out of devotion to God and out of love for St Cuthbert presented to him these townships’), Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 60–1, Section 23: Et hic filius diaboli inimicus fuit quibusconque modis potuit Deo et sancto Cuthberto (‘And this son of the devil was an enemy in whatever way he was able of God and St Cuthbert’); episcopus et tota congregatio genua flecterent ante Deum et sanctum Cuthbertum (‘the bishop and the whole congregation knelt before God and St Cuthbert’), ibid., pp. 62–3; Section 33: Hoc est Dei et sancti Cuthberti miraculum (‘This is a miracle of God and St Cuthbert’), ibid., pp. 68–9. Nees, ‘Reading Aldred’s Colophon’, p. 361. ‘In his right hand a gospel book ornamented with gold and gems’ (Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 54–5). A point noted by Cox, ‘Book as Relic’, p. 151. Historia, ed. Johnson South, p. 57. Historia, ed. Johnson South, p. 59.

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Æthelstan qualiter eum contra omnes hostes uirliter iuuisset, et quomodo sibimet ipsi in omnibus necessitatibus suis euidentissime promptissimus semper adiutor fuisset.96

If the liturgical texts in Corpus 183 do indeed date from the time of Edward, they provide proof that Cuthbert was in fact honoured at his court, just as the Historia claims, and they raise the possibility that the Alfred episode, while written at a later date, may have been based on an earlier tradition. Yet even if Æthelstan’s gifts were used by the Cuthbert community to project a history of West Saxon royal support back into the past, it was a move that would have been entirely in accord with Æthelstan’s own attempts at creating history. Regardless of the date at which the Alfred and Cuthbert story was composed, Æthelstan’s gift of both the gospel book in 934 and the Bede manuscript at whatever time it may have been offered, would have been understood as devotional objects given in exchange for the prayers of the community and the blessing of the saint. The fact that the name Æthelstan Rex was added at the head of the list of royal and aristocratic donors in the Durham Liber Vitae (London, British Library, MS Cotton Domitian A.vii, fol. 12r), possibly by the scribe of Corpus 183,97 indicates that the gifts served their purpose. The opening of the text that begins the final section of Corpus 183, the Hymn to Cuthbert on folio 92v, Magnus miles mirabilis (‘Great and noble soldier’), would certainly have had a particular appeal to a king enlisting the help of a saint in a military context, and it is echoed by Cuthbert’s description of himself as a soldier of Christ (Christi miles) in the account of his appearance to Alfred in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto.98 One wonders whether the Bede manuscript might have been given either just prior to the battle of Brunanburh in 937 as a means of ensuring victory, or perhaps shortly after the battle as a gift of thanks for having achieved it. The campaign for control of the North would then have been opened with the gift of one book and closed with that of another. Obviously there is no guarantee that the historical reality was quite so obligingly symmetrical, but it is worth noting that The Battle of Brunanburh, which opens with the triumphant image of Æthelstan and his brother Edmund leading a combined army of Mercians and West Saxons, ends with a reference back to the arrival of the Angles and Saxons in England, the same event documented immediately after the royal genealogy of the West Saxons in Corpus 183: Ne wearð wæl mare on þis eiglande æfre gieta folces gefylled beforan þissum sweordes ecgum, þæs þe us secgað bec, ealde uðwitan, siþþan eastan hider Engle and Seaxe up becoman, 96

‘[Edward] summoned his son Æthelstan, handed his kingdom over to him, and diligently instructed [him] to love St Cuthbert and honour him above all saints, revealing to him how he had mercifully succoured his father King Alfred in poverty and exile and how he had boldly aided him against all enemies, and in what way he had always very clearly come most promptly as his continual helper whenever there was need’ (Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 64–5). 97 M. Budny, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue (Kalamazoo, MI, 1997), p. 163. 98 Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 54–5; Cox, ‘Book as Relic’, p. 123.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England ofer brad brimu Brytene sohtan, wlance wigsmiþas, Wealas ofercoman, eorlas arhwate eard begeatan.99 (lines 65b–73)

As with so many works associated with Æthelstan, the poem extends West Saxon rule to the whole of Britain, and projects its source back to the very arrival of the Angles and the Saxons through genealogy, through the heroic tradition, and through a history of texts. Much has been made of the poet’s use of the word bec, the plural for books, and its suggestion that the poet was not only aware of the story from older texts, but aware also that his poem was part of one of the books that not only preserved but began with that very story.100 This view of the poem gains some support from the fact that while the poet praises Æthelstan and Edmund’s ‘ancestral virtues’,101 the next entry in the Chronicle, Æthelstan’s obit in 940, associates him with Alfred, the embodiment of those same virtues, and the king under whom the Chronicle was begun.102 Whatever the specific books to which the poet was referring, it is clear that the Chronicle itself must have been one of them, and that he was appealing to the authority of written texts as part of his own written text. Moreover, he has appropriated a traditional heroic form, poetry, and a deliberately archaising language in which to do it.103 At the same time the poem is without precedent; it is the first of the four Chronicle poems and thus the first to redefine the seemingly straightforward recording of isolated events as a self-consciously literary construction as noteworthy for its own artifice as for the events it celebrates. It is not only a monument to Æthelstan’s victory, it is a monument to the victory of the West Saxon dynasty with whose arrival in Britain the Chronicle narrative began.

99

100

101 102

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The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. E. van Kirk Dobbie, ASPR VI (New York and London, 1942), p. 20. ‘Never yet on this island has there been a greater slaughter of folk felled by the sword’s edges before this, according to what books tell us, old wisemen, since hither from the east the Angles and Saxons arrived, sought Britain over the broad sea, proud war-smiths, overcame the Welsh, men eager for glory, conquered the country.’ See M. Irvine, ‘Medieval Textuality and the Archaeology of Textual Culture’, in Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. A. J. Frantzen (Albany, 1991), pp. 181–210, at 202–8; but see also J. Hill, The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic: Reconstructing Lordship in Early English Literature (Gainesville, FL, 2000), p. 97. Hill, Warrior Ethic, p. 95. Her Æþelstan cyning forðferde on .vi. kalendas Nouembris ymbe .xl. wintra butan anre niht þæs þe Ælfred cyning forþferde, & Eadmund æþeling feng to rice (‘In this year king Æthelstan died on the sixth kalends of November, forty years except one night from the death of King Alfred, and Eadmund the ætheling succeeded to the kingdom’ [MS A, ed. Bately]). A. Campbell, The Battle of Brunanburh (London, 1938), pp. 8–15; Irvine, ‘Medieval Textuality’, pp. 181–210, at 202–8; J. Thormann, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems and the Making of the English Nation’, in Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity, ed. A. J. Frantzen and J. D. Niles (Gainesville, FL, 1997), pp. 60–85, at 64; J. Thormann, ‘The Battle of Brunanburh and the Matter of History’, Mediaevalia 17 (1994 for 1991), 5–13.

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Æthelstan DEVOTION AND DYNASTY

Although Asser states that Alfred ordered ‘incomparable’ treasures of gold and silver to be made, and monasteries to be founded or refounded,104 very little survives that can be dated with any certainty to his reign. Far more is known about patronage at the courts of his children Edward and Æthelflæd, and it is no doubt on the things that he is likely to have learned at their courts that Æthelstan modelled many of his own devotional practices. A brief overview of the relevant aspects of the patronage of Edward and Æthelflæd is therefore in order. Edward founded the New Minster in 901, possibly in accordance with the wishes of his father,105 and developed it into a royal mausoleum and cult centre. Edward translated the remains of his father from the Old Minster to the New Minster shortly after its foundation. His mother was also buried in the New Minster on her death in 902, as was his brother Æthelweard in the early 920s, and Edward himself, along with his son Ælfweard, were both buried there at their deaths in 924. A charter of 901, witnessed by Æthelstan, directed that prayers were to be said in the New Minster every day for Edward’s ancestors, his father and himself (pro me et uenerabili patre et auibus meis cotidie orationes fiant et intercessiones).106 The commissioning of the ‘Cuthbert’ embroideries for Frithestan, bishop of Winchester 909–31, might profitably be understood within the context of Winchester’s development as a royal centre during Edward’s reign.107 The expense of the material and quality of the workmanship of the embroideries are certainly suggestive of a royal commission. As Elizabeth Coatsworth has emphasised, the quality of the silk and of the stitching are superb, and the gold thread is most unusually wrapped around silk thread rather than the less costly materials used in other surviving embroideries.108 The iconography is also unusual and presumably worked out for the patron by, or with the help of, an 104 105

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108

Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 101, 102 and 105; Asser, ed. Stevenson, pp. 77, 79 and 85. M. Biddle, ‘Felix Urbs Winthonia . . .’ in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in the Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and Regularis Concordia, ed. D. Parsons (London and Chichester, 1975), pp. 123–40, at 128–31; S. Keynes, ed., The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, British Library Stowe 944, EEMF xxvi (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 16–18; Hare, ‘The Documentary Evidence to 1086’, in The Golden Minster, ed. Heighway and Bryant, pp. 33–45, at 34. But see also S. Miller, ed., Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, Anglo-Saxon Charters IX (London, 2001), p. xxv. S 365; Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, no. 4. Interestingly and unusually, Edward places this grant of land and request for prayers in the context of earlier royal grants (ex decimatione quam aui mei decimauerunt, ex eorum propriis terris istius regni), and requests for the offering of prayers and celebration of masses for previous kings and their kingdoms (in multis locis est scriptum pro rege missarum celebrationem et uotiuas orations pro statu regni pro pace et tranquillitate illorum). For the evidence of cultural production at Edward’s court, see Gameson, ‘Decoration of the Tanner Bede’. Gameson points out that, along with the embroideries, the Tanner Bede (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 10), the Junius Psalter (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 27), the Tollemache Orosius (London, British Library, MS Additional 47967 [Helmingham Hall 46]), the calendar of the Galba Psalter (London, British Library, Galba A.xviii and Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. B.484, fol. 85), the Durham Ritual (Durham, Cathedral Library, MS B.III.32) and London, British Library, MS Royal 5.F.iii, may all have been produced during Edward’s reign. Coatsworth, ‘Embroideries’, pp. 296–7.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England ecclesiastical advisor.109 The Cuthbert embroideries are as remarkable for their iconography as they are for their execution. The choice and combination of saints and prophets is unusual, as is the fact that the prophets hold books instead of the more traditional scrolls.110 Of greater interest however is the way in which the symbolic and iconographic programme might be seen as building on the ideals espoused by Alfred. On maniple I, Gregory the Great and his deacon and secretary Peter on one end, and saints Laurence and Sixtus on the other, flank a central hand of God. As Hohler has shown, both Laurence and Peter died as a result of their protection of books; the books of the bible in the case of Laurence, and the writings of Gregory in that of Peter.111 Gregory had been responsible for the revision of the texts of the mass, in which both Laurence and Sixtus are named,112 and he was also the pope who had sent Augustine to the English, who had authored the Regula Pastoralis, and who had loomed so large in Alfred’s educational reforms and ideas of national identity. The emphasis on Gregory as author suggested by the presence of Peter can be understood as a visual reminder of the message of the Regula Pastoralis, and of Alfred’s distribution of its translated text to his bishops – in addition to the more general liturgical meaning of the figures. The hand of God, symbolic of ‘divine intervention in human affairs’113 as well as divine sanction or blessing, was a reference to the divine origin of the sacraments of the eucharist and baptism (symbolised by John the Evangelist and John the Baptist in the end panels of the maniple). It would also have rested directly above the hand of the bishop who wore it, linking his actions in the present with those who had provided and enacted the textual sources and authority for them in the past, and his church with Rome and the origins of the English church in the mission sent by Gregory. The hand of God also appears in Anglo-Saxon coinage for the first time on coins of Edward the Elder dated c. 910–15,114 and would thus have been current as an image associated with royal authority at around the same time that the embroideries were commissioned. The possibility that the hand of God carried royal significance on the maniple is reinforced by the presence of the Agnus Dei at the centre of the stole. The lamb was a symbol of Christ, and also featured in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah, the prophets depicted to either side of the lamb on the stole; but the composition of the image, with the lamb at the centre of a quatrefoil bordered by floral or foliate sprigs, is similar to the decoration of the Æthelswith ring.115 Æthelswith was the sister of Alfred who had married Burgred of Mercia, and had died in exile at Pavia 109

110 111 112 113 114

115

Depicted on the stole are: St James (end), Nahum, Obadiah, Amos, Daniel, Jeremiah, the Agnus Dei, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Habakkuk, Jonas, Zachariah, St Thomas (end). Depicted on maniple I are: Laurence, Sixtus, the Dextera dei, Gregory, Petrus, with John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at either end. C. Hohler, ‘Iconography’, pp. 400–8. Hohler, ‘Iconography’, p. 401. Hohler, ‘Iconography’, p. 401. Hohler, ‘Iconography’, p. 400. C. E. Blunt, B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. S. S. Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England: From Edward the Elder to Edgar’s Reform (Oxford, 1989), pp. 42–6, pl. 5 nos. 15–20; S. Lyon, ‘The Coinage of Edward the Elder’, in Edward the Elder, ed. Higham and Hill, pp. 67–78, at 73 and fig. 5.2 no. 20. See Making of England, no. 244; Golden Age, no. 10. The ring is inscribed + EAÐELSVIÐ REGNA.

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Æthelstan in 888. The ring has usually been interpreted as a symbol of office, and an object that was more likely to have been a royal gift rather than a personal possession,116 though it could of course have been all of these things. Given the fact that images known to be emblematic of royal authority and associated specifically with Edward the Elder and his aunt appear at the centre of two of the embroideries, it is reasonable to assume that a contemporary audience would have recognised them as royal symbols, and that one of the reasons they were included in the iconographic programme of the embroideries was as signs of the king and queen during whose reign they were commissioned. It should be remembered that it was just at this time that Edward was occupied in building the New Minster into a royal pantheon, and Winchester into a combined royal and ecclesiastical centre,117 so that a gift to the bishop of Winchester on which royal authority, national history, and liturgical exegesis were harmoniously interwoven would have been particularly appropriate. While absolute certainty is impossible, the style, motifs, and the overall iconographic programme support the traditional scenario according to which they were commissioned for Frithestan by queen Ælfflæd, Edward the Elder’s second wife. Ælfflæd married the king c. 900, and either died or adopted a religious life, possibly as a vowess, at the dissolution of her marriage c. 917.118 Whether it was indeed Æthelstan who donated the embroideries to Cuthbert is also open to question;119 however, as Frithestan died in 931 it is possible that the embroideries had come into Æthelstan’s possession by the time of his 934 visit to Chester-le-Street, and the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto does credit him with the gift of a stole and maniple (amongst other treasures).120 It is also possible that the 116 117

Making of England, no. 244; Golden Age, no. 10. On the connection of Edward’s charters to the Old and New Minsters, see S. Keynes, ‘The West Saxon Charters of King Æthelwulf and his Sons’, EHR 110 (1994), 1109–49, at 1146. 118 See S. Foot, Veiled Women: The Disappearance of Nuns from Anglo-Saxon England, 2 vols. (Aldershot, 2000), I, pp. 141 and 180–1; L. Abrams, Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury: Church and Endowment (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 64–5, 185–6 and 249; M. A. Meyer, ‘Women and the Tenth Century English Monastic Reform’, Revue Bénédictine 87 (1977), 34–61, esp. 46–7; idem, ‘The Queen’s “demesne” in Later Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Commemoration of Denis L. T. Bethell, ed. M. A. Meyer (London, 1993), pp. 75–113. The tradition of Ælfflæd’s entering the religious life rests exclusively on the evidence of William of Malmesbury (Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors et al., I, §126; The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury’s De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, ed. J. Scott [Woodbridge, 1981], pp. 112 and 142) and his interpretation of a series of charters recording grants of land to women named Ælfflæd (S 399, S 474, S 1719). There is of course no guarantee that the Ælfflæd named in the charters is the queen of the same name, nor even that they all refer to a single Ælfflæd. It is inconceivable, for example, that the Ælfflæd mentioned in a charter of King Edgar dated 959–75 (S 1763) could have been the same woman who married Edward c. 900. 119 Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, pp. 177–8. 120 In Nomine Domine Nostri Iesu Christi. Ego Æthelstanus rex do sancto Cuthberto hunc textum euangeliorum, ·II· casulas, et ·I· albam et ·I· stolam cum manipulo, et ·I· cingulum, et ·III· altaris cooperimenta, et ·I· calicem argenteum, et ·II· patenas, alteram auro paratam alteram greco opere fabrefactam, et ·I· turibulum argenteum, et ·I· crucem auro et ebore artificiose paratam, et ·I· regium pilleum auro textum, et ·II· tabulas auro et argento fabrefactas, et ·II· candelabra argentea auro parata, et ·I· missalem, et ·II· euangeliorum textus auro et argento ornatos, et ·I· sancti Cuthberti uitam metrice et prosaice scriptam, et ·VII· pallia, et ·III· cortinas, et ·III· tapetia, et ·II· coppas argenteas cum cooperculis, et ·IIII· magnas campanas, et ·III· cornua auro et argento fabrefacta, et ·II· uexilla, et ·I· lanceam, et ·II· armillas aureus, et meam uillam dilectam Wiremuthe Australem cum suis appendiciis, id est Westun, Uffertun, Sylceswurthe, duas Reofhoppas, Byrdene, Sæham, Sætun, Daltun, Daldene, Heseldene. Hec omnia do sub Dei et

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England donor was Beornstan, Frithestan’s successor as bishop of Winchester, and a man who was particularly close to the king, having been elevated from amongst the clergy serving in the royal household.121 Beornstan was a witness to the charter issued at Nottingham on 7 June 934 that granted land to the church of York,122 and is thus known to have accompanied that king at least that far on his journey north. It would be perfectly understandable if objects donated by one of the king’s party should have eventually come to be seen as donations by the king himself. Whoever the actual donor was, and it must be remembered that in spite of all the circumstantial evidence there is no guarantee that it was either Æthelstan or Beornstan, the embroideries would not only have provided a fittingly luxurious gift to the saint whose favour Æthelstan was actively courting, but would also have made an apt symbol of the extension of West Saxon political and ecclesiastical control from Winchester into the north of England. The scale of Edward’s patronage and promotion of the church in Winchester was new, and no doubt had an influence on his son, but Edward was concerned with developing a royal cult centre, and while the New Minster housed royal burials it did not possess a saint of Cuthbert’s magnitude. Moreover, Æthelstan famously turned his back on the New Minster, possibly because Winchester had favoured the succession of his half-brother Ælfweard at Edward’s death.123 According to William of Malmesbury, writing well after the fact, there was also a plot at Winchester to have Æthelstan blinded.124 This latter story may gain some contemporary support from the final perjury clause of Æthelstan’s Grately Code, which denies burial in consecrated ground to anyone who swears a false oath.125 Alternatively, Alan Thacker has suggested that Æthelstan may have abandoned the New Minster simply because it had become ‘the pantheon of Edward’s family by Ælfflæd’.126

121 122 123

124 125 126

Sancti Cuthberti testimonio, ut si quis inde aliquid abstulerit dampnetur in die iudicii cum Iuda traditore et trudatur in ignem eternum qui paratus est diabolo et angelis eius. (‘In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I, King Æthelstan, give to St Cuthbert this gospel-book, two chasubles, and one alb, and one stole with maniple, and one belt, and three altar-coverings, and one silver chalice, and two patens, one finished with gold, the other of Greek workmanship, and one silver thurible, and one cross skilfully finished with gold and ivory, and one royal headdress woven with gold, and two tablets crafted of silver and gold, and one missal, and two gospel-books ornamented with gold and silver, and one life of St Cuthbert written in verse and in prose, and seven palls, and three curtains, and three tapestries, and two silver cups with covers, and four large bells, and three horns crafted of gold and silver, and two banners, and one lance, and two golden armlets, and my beloved vill of Bishop Wearmouth with its dependencies, namely Westun, Offerton, Silksworth, the two Ryhopes, Burdon, Seaham, Seaton, Dalton-le-Dale, Dawdon, Cold Hesledon. All these I give under witness of God and St Cuthbert, so that if anyone steals anything there, let him be damned on the Day of Judgement with the traitor Judas and be thrust into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ [Historia, ed. Johnson South, pp. 64–5].) Wood, ‘Æthelstan’s Empire’, p. 253; Keynes, ‘Athelstan’s Books’, 185–9. See below, p. 80. S. Keynes, ‘England, c. 900–1016’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, III: c.900–1024, ed. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 456–84, at 468; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, pp. 19–21; B. Yorke, ‘Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century’, in Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. B. Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 65–88, at 71–3. Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors et al., pp. 222–3, 226–7. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 306–7. A. Thacker, ‘Dynastic Monuments and Family Cults: Edward the Elder’s Sainted Kindred’, in Edward the Elder, ed. Higham and Hill, pp. 248–63, at 254–5.

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Æthelstan While Æthelstan clearly seems to have turned away from his father’s foundation, he just as clearly does not seem to have turned away from that of his aunt Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, at Gloucester, and it is possible that the time Æthelstan is reported as having spent as a youth at his aunt’s court may have influenced his preferences. The tradition that Æthelstan was fostered at the Mercian court rests largely on the authority of William of Malmesbury,127 though once again there is also some evidence to support his claims. A charter issued by Æthelstan for St Oswald’s, Gloucester recorded in 1304 but thought to be based on an original of 925 or 926,128 credits ealdorman Æthelred with the foundation of the church and states that Æthelstan was acting in accordance with a pact of paternal piety with Æthelred (his foster father).129 The language of the charter has been shown to have similarities with the flamboyant language characteristic of Æthelstan’s surviving charters, and is therefore believable enough.130 Oswald, like Cuthbert, was an important national saint, but also an important Mercian saint, and his relics had been translated to Gloucester from Bardney in Lincolnshire in 909131 as part of Æthelflæd and Æthelred’s politically motivated promotion of Mercian saints.132 The translation of Oswald’s remains may also have been associated with the 909 raid into Danish territory that marked the beginning of the conquest of the middle and eastern section of England by the combined forces of Æthelflæd and Edward133 – although Michael Hare has argued that the wording of the Chronicle entry suggests that Edward did not actually take part in the raid and that it ought to be seen as ‘principally a Mercian affair’.134 Thus benefits to be derived from combining devotion and patronage with a political agenda, and specifically with linking such patronage to military conquest, may have been a lesson Æthelstan learned at the Mercian court. St Oswald’s remained a major beneficiary of Æthelstan’s patronage long after he left Mercia for Wessex,135 and the style of the Gloucester grave-covers, one of the parallels cited for the Cuthbert embroideries, accords with a date in Æthelstan’s

127 128 129 130 131

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134 135

Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors et al., §133. Hare, ‘Documentary Evidence’, pp. 34, 36–7 and 41; Heighway, ‘Gloucester and the New Minster’, p. 103. Hare, ‘Documentary Evidence’, pp. 34, 36–7 and 41. Hare, ‘Documentary Evidence’, p. 41. Mercian Register s.a. 909: Her wæs Sancte Oswaldes lic gelæded of Beardanigge on Myrce. MS C, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe, vol. 5 of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge, 2001), p. 75. It is interesting to note that Osthryth, the queen responsible for the original translation of Oswald’s relics to Bardney, was also a foreign (Northumbrian) queen, and that both she and her husband, King Æthelred of Mericia, were eventually buried at Bardney. Hare, ‘Documentary Evidence’, p. 36; C. Heighway and M. Hare, ‘Gloucester and the Minster of St Oswald: A Survey of the Evidence’, in Golden Minster, ed. Heighway and Bryant, p. 11; A. Thacker, ‘Membra Disjecta: The Division of the Body and the Diffusion of the Cult’, in Oswald Northumbrian King to European Saint, ed. C. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge (Stamford, 1995), pp. 97–127, at 120; Rollason, Saints and Relics, p. 154. Heighway, ‘Gloucester and the New Minster’, p. 108, and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 909 (MS A, ed. Bately): þy ilcan gere sende Eadweard cyng firde ægðer ge of Westseaxum ge of Mercum, and heo gehergade swiðe micel on þæm norðhere (‘in that same year King Edward sent an army of both West Saxons and Mercians and they harried much of the North’). Hare, ‘Documentary Evidence’, p. 35. Thacker, ‘Dynastic Monasteries and Family Cults’, p. 256; Thacker, ‘Membra Disjecta’, p. 121.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England reign, and with the suggestion that they may have been commissioned by the king to enhance the tombs of Æthelflæd and Æthelred, both of whom were buried at St Oswald’s.136 It was at Gloucester that Æthelstan himself died in 939, and it was to Malmesbury, a church that was closely linked with St Oswald’s,137 that he was taken for burial. The choice of Malmesbury is likely to have been as significant for its location near the border of Wessex and Mercia, the kingdoms ruled by Æthelstan’s father and his foster-parents, as it was for its Aldhelmian associations.138 Raised between the two courts of Wessex and Mercia, Æthelstan is likely to have felt and been seen as uniquely suited to bridging the traditional political divide between them, and to healing any remaining resentment for his father’s forcible removal of his cousin Ælfwyn from a position of power. His burial literally on the border between the two kingdoms might have been understood as a continuing manifestation of his ability to unite them long after his death. During his lifetime Æthelstan may also have supported the cult of Oswald at Chester, the location of one of his most important mints. His half-sister Edith is certainly credited with spreading the saint’s cult to the Continent as a result of her marriage to the German emperor Otto I in 929–30.139 Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim recorded that Edith was nata de stirpe beata Oswaldi Regis (‘of the blessed line of King Oswald’).140 The cults of Oswald and Cuthbert were of course closely linked. In the earliest days of the Northumbrian church Oswald had given Aidan the island on which he founded the monastery of Lindisfarne in 635. In the tenth century Chesterle-Street, the site of the resettled Lindisfarne community, was one of the most important centres of Oswald’s cult in the North. Oswald’s skull is also known to have rested for a time in Cuthbert’s coffin, though it is unclear whether or not it had been placed in the coffin by the 930s.141 Even if the skull was not yet in Cuthbert’s coffin, it is clear that the cults of Cuthbert and Oswald were promoted side by side. If Æthelstan’s support of Cuthbert in Northumbria helped him to gain control of the North, his support of Oswald’s cult in Mercia would have helped to maintain his popularity in a region that still had not lost its desire for independence;142 just as it had helped to secure the acceptance of Æthelflæd, a West Saxon princess, as a Mercian ‘Lady’, so it would also have helped to 136 137 138 139

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141 142

Bryant, ‘Sculpture’, p. 165. On the date of the sculpture, see West, ‘Carved Slab’, p. 50. Æthelstan’s cousins Ælfwine and Æthelwine, both killed at Brunanburh, were also buried at Malmesbury. Wood, ‘Æthelstan’s Empire’, p. 271. For the influence of Aldhelm on the ‘royal style’ of Æthelstan’s charters, see Keynes, ‘Charters of King Æthelstan’. Thacker, ‘Membra Disjecta’, pp. 121 and 127; D. Ó Riain-Raedel, ‘Edith, Judith, Matilda: The Role of Royal Ladies in the Propagation of the Continental Cult’, in Oswald, ed. Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 210–29. Gesta Ottonis, ed. P. Winterfield, Hrotsvithae Opera, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germainiae Historicis separatim editi (Berlin and Zurich, 1965), p. 207. See also, Thacker, ‘Membra Disjecta’, 121; Ó Riain-Raedel, ‘Edith, Judith, Matilda’, pp. 212–16; K. Leyser, ‘The Ottonians and Wessex’, in his Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries, ed. T. Reuter (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1994), pp. 73–104, at 72–9. R. N. Bailey, ‘St Oswald’s Heads’, in Oswald, ed. Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 195–209, at 197–201. Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth Century England, p. 109.

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Æthelstan consolidate West Saxon control over the former Mercian kingdom. Certainly no other Anglo-Saxon king can be as strongly associated with Oswald as Æthelstan, and it is difficult to believe that Æthelstan would not have been conscious of the manner in which the patronage of both Oswald and Cuthbert would have strengthened his position throughout the England over which he was now claiming to rule.143

CONTROL, COLLECTION AND KINGSHIP

Æthelstan’s patterns of patronage and the images, objects and manuscripts that were a part of that patronage were clearly governed by his larger political concerns, and indeed Æthelstan is the first Anglo-Saxon king who can be both said and seen to have exercised control over virtually every aspect of his rule. Blunt commented on the ‘determination’ of the king to maintain a ‘firm grip’ on his coinage, a determination reflected both in his use of different types of coins in different regions of the country, and in his introduction of mint names on his coinage.144 Æthelstan’s concern for which types of coin, and hence which images, circulated in which areas of the country shows an awareness of the power of coins as images on a scale not encountered previously in Anglo-Saxon England, with the possible exception of coins minted in Mercia during the period in which it was ruled by Æthelflæd.145 Certainly all rulers were aware of the meaning of the images that were placed on their coins, but such an awareness is a very different thing from the recognition of the power of images to sway an audience, or to be interpreted differently by different audiences. Æthelstan was also the first king to make legislation on coinage a part of his laws.146 The Grately Code (II Æthelstan) includes clauses stipulating that one coinage was to be used throughout the land, that money was to be minted only in towns, that convicted moneyers were to have the offending hand struck off, and that each mint was to have a set number of moneyers.147 Patrick Wormald has linked the king’s desire for control over his coinage to his legislation, especially his ‘obsession’ with thieves,148 a point to which we will return. An unusually close connection also exists between the language and the spirit of Æthelstan’s laws and those of his charters.149 Both the charters, especially those of the scribe ‘Æthelstan A’, and the laws, especially those that targeted ‘morally obnoxious’ categories, were couched in a highly rhetorical hermeneutic language150 more commonly associated with homilies. Both sets of texts were also explicit as to exactly which forms of earthly 143 144 145

146 147 148 149 150

Oswald, ed. Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 1, 127, 215, 216. Blunt, ‘Coinage of Æthelstan’, pp. 41 and 116. See C. E. Karkov, ‘Æthelflæd’s Exceptional Coinage?’, Old English Newsletter 29.1 (1995), 41. As with her translation of Mercian saints, the iconography of Mercian coinage under Æthelflæd may reflect specifically Mercian events and traditions. Blunt, ‘Coinage of Æthelstan’, p. 40. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 158; trans. EHD, p. 384. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 305, 306 and 439–40. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 306–7. Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 302; Keynes, ‘Charters of King Athelstan’.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England punishment and divine retribution awaited those who violated their decrees. The convicted moneyer was not only to have his hand struck off, but to have it displayed above his mint,151 while a clause in I Æthelstan addressing the king’s reeves made it clear that any one of them who went against the wishes of the king went against the wishes of God: & beorgað ægþer ge eow ge ðam þe ge myngian scylan wið Godes yrre & wið mine oferhyrnesse.152 V Æthelstan, issued at Exeter in the wake of widespread disregard for the Grately code,153 stipulated that man singe ælc Frigdæge æt ælcum mynstre ealle þa Godes þeowan an fiftig for þone cyng & for ealle þe willaþ ðæt he wile & for þa oþre, swa hy geearnian.154 The charters too request prayers from religious foundations as well as laymen. Charters issued in the winter of 932–33 record grants conditional on the singing of psalms for the king and other acts of charity. The nuns of Shaftesbury were required to sing fifty psalms and say mass for the king daily until the Last Judgement in exchange for a grant of land at Fontmell, Dorset (S 419); the monks of Sherborne were asked to sing the whole of the psalter and say a mass for the king annually in return for a grant of land at Bradfort Abbas, Dorset (S 422); while a layman named Alfred was granted land at North Stoneham (Hants) on the condition that he and his heirs feed 120 of the poor every day with bread and porridge (pulmento) until the Last Judgement (S 418).155 The Last Judgement and the intersection of royal and divine will are also an increasingly prominent theme in the proems of Æthelstan’s charters, and once again especially the charters of the scribe ‘Æthelstan A’. A charter of 7 June 934 granting Amounderness to the church of York (S 407) opens with a vision of heaven and hell that surpasses in its graphic detail anything depicted in Anglo-Saxon art. + Fortuna fallentis saeculi procax non lacteo immarcescibilium liliorum candore amabilis, sed fellita ejulandae corruptionis amaritudine odibilis, foetentes filios valle in lachrimarum carnis rectibus debacchando venenosis mordaciter dilacerat; quae quamvis arridendo sit infelicibus adtractabilis Acherontici ad ima Cocyti, ni satus alti subveniat boantis, impudenter est decurribilis; et ideo quia ipsa ruinosa deficiendo tanaliter dilabitur, summopere festinandum est ad amoena indicibilis laetitiae arva, ubi angelica ymnidicae jubilationis organa, mellifluaque vernantium rosarum odoramina a bonis beatisque naribus inestimabili dulcia capiuntur, sineque calce auribus clivipparum suavia audiuntur.156 151 152

153 154

155 156

Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 158; trans. EHD, p. 384. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 148. ‘And you are to guard both yourselves and those whom you should admonish against the anger of God and against disobedience to me’ (quoted in Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 303). S. Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 226–57, at 237. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 168; trans. EHD, p. 387: ‘and every Friday at every minster all the servants of God are to sing fifty psalms for the king and for all who desire what he desires, and for the others, as they may deserve’. See further Keynes, ‘Charters of King Æthelstan’. For the text of the charter see the ‘Regesta Regum Anglorum’, http://www.anglo-saxons.net. Also accessible via the Anglo-Saxon Charters website: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/chartwww. Trans. EHD, pp. 505–6: ‘+ The wanton fortunes of this deceiving world, not lovely with the milk-white radiance of unfading lilies, but odious with the gall-steeped bitterness of lamentable corruption, raging with venomous wide-stretched jaws, bitingly rends the sons of stinking flesh in this vale of tears; and

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Æthelstan In this charter, issued during the king’s journey north, indeed perhaps issued as part of his effort to strengthen his hold on the area,157 Æthelstan styles himself rex Anglorum, per omnipotentis dextram, quae Christus est, totius Brittanniae regni solio sublimatus.158 The title reflects a slightly different view of kingship from that which we have encountered previously. In claiming dominion over ‘the whole of Britain’, Æthelstan here claims rule over a geographical area rather than over a people (i.e. the Anglo-Saxons) or an area defined by its association with a people (i.e. ‘Anglalond’, the land of the Angles), although what exactly constitutes the ‘Britain’ over which Æthelstan claims power is left undefined. Also new is the exalted nature of this kingship. Æthelstan does not simply base his style of kingship on the model of Christ, but now claims to rule by divine right, by his having been raised to the throne of Britain ‘by the right hand of the Almighty’. Anyone violating the king’s word signified by the charter now violated a seemingly divine decree, or at least one that had its origins in the divine, and this is reflected in the sanction clause which returns to the imagery of the proem, invoking damnation as the ultimate penalty to be paid by anyone violating the charter: Si autem, quod absit, aliquis typo supercilii turgens hanc meae emptionis ac confirmationis breviculam elidere vel infringere temptaverit, sciat se novissima ac tremenda concionis die classica archangeli clangente buccina, somatibus tetra postponentibus poliandria, cum Juda impii proditoris compilatore, infaustis quoque Judaeis Christum ore sacrilego ara in crucis blasphemantibus, aeterna confusione, edacibus favillantium tormentorum ignibus, sine fine poenaliter arsurum.159

The similarities in tone and imagery in the laws, charters and coins suggest that Æthelstan maintained a certain amount of control from the top, even if he was unable to insure that all his decrees and desires were enforced.160 The inscriptions and portraits added to the manuscripts Æthelstan donated to his churches provide evidence that he sought to maintain as careful control over his possessions and his gifts as he did over the legal and diplomatic aspects of his rule. The inscription added to Cotton Tiberius A.ii indicates further that he did so using language and conditions very similar to those of the laws and charters. This is in many ways only to be expected; collection and donation were as much a part of Æthelstan’s

157 158 159

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although by its smiles it may be able to draw unfortunates to the bottom of Acherontic Cocytus, unless the Creator of the roaring deep lend his aid, it is shamelessly fickle; and therefore, because this ruinous fortune falls and mortally decays, one should chiefly hasten to the pleasant fields of indescribable joy, where are the angelic instruments of hymn-singing jubilation and the mellifluous scents of blooming roses are perceived with inconceivable sweetness by the nostrils of the good and blessed and harmonious are heard by their ears for ever.’ EHD, p. 505. ‘King of the English elevated by the right hand of the Almighty, which is Christ, to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain’. Text: ‘Regesta Regum Anglorum’, http://www.anglo-saxons.net. Trans. Whitelock, EHD, p. 506: ‘If, however – which God forbid – anyone puffed up with the pride of arrogance shall try to destroy or infringe this little document of my agreement and confirmation, let him know that on the last and fearful day of assembly, when the trumpet of the archangel is clanging the call and bodies are leaving the foul graveyards, he will burn with Judas the committor of impious treachery and also with the miserable Jews, blaspheming with sacrilegious mouth Christ on the altar of the Cross, in eternal confusion in the devouring flames of blazing torments in punishment without end.’ See, for example, Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 169, 300, 440.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England performance of kingship as were his proclamation of the law,161 or the imagery and titles that circulated on his coinage. One wonders in this regard whether Æthelstan’s campaign against thieves might not have been inspired as much by his role as a collector of precious books and relics as it was by his desire to maintain a firm hand on his coinage. As regards the ‘performative’ nature of collecting, the performance would have been most public at two particular moments: the moment at which the objects were received and the moment at which they were given away,162 the two moments memorialised by the inscriptions and the portraits, as well as by surviving relic lists.163 (As objects could be given and received multiple times these are not necessarily the same moments.) Writing of Jean, Duc de Berry, perhaps the most famous medieval collector of all, Michael Camille noted that ‘desire seems to have been expressed for him in the act of collecting and exchanging, giving and possessing, things rather than in the physical interaction with the things themselves’,164 and the same seems to have been true of Æthelstan. But the inscriptions, relic lists, and especially the portraits, also served to connect the body of the king with the objects that passed through his collections. David Rollason has noted the homiletic tone of the Exeter relic list, which he believes indicates that it was meant for recitation within the church, most probably on the feast of the relics when the objects themselves were likely to have been displayed. He also notes that the whole performance would have brought to mind the absent body of the king: ‘As the recitation worked its way through the 138 items . . . who could have doubted that the king who had assembled that stupendous collection was a ruler of great wealth, power and piety?’165 The portraits made that body visible in a far less ambiguous way; but they also did more than that. The images of the prominently crowned Æthelstan presenting his books to St Cuthbert in exchange for the good will of the saint and military victory differed from the ideas expressed in the charters requesting psalms, masses or alms, or from the request for psalms in V Æthelstan, only in the form those ideas took and in the action requested from the saint. The portraits represented the king as eternally present before the saint, offering his books and his devotion and receiving Cuthbert’s acknowledgement that his offerings had been accepted, if not the saint’s blessing, in return until the Last Judgement. What emerges above all from the image Æthelstan created of himself through his control of the art historical, diplomatic, legal and numismatic records, is the portrait of a king who desired to be remembered as much for his devotion and 161

162

163 164 165

On the performative aspects of legislation, see Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 445–6; P. 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; repr. P. Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: Law as Text, Image and Experience (London, 1999), pp. 1–43; S. Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’. Although, as Michael Camille warns, no collection in the Middle Ages should be thought of as ‘private’ in the sense that we use that word today. M. Camille, ‘ “For Our Devotion and Pleasure”: The Sexual Objects of Jean, Duc de Berry’, Art History 24.2 (2001), 169–94, at 181. See above, n. 1. Camille, ‘Devotion and Pleasure’, 190. Rollason, Saints and Relics, p. 160.

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Æthelstan generosity as for his exalted status and the severity of his laws on thieves. If Alfred had established an underlying biblical element to every aspect of his rule,166 Æthelstan brought that element out into the open, aligning himself with Christ, his own judgements with the Last Judgement, obedience to his words with obedience to the Word of God, and his own image with the production and distribution of sacred and hagiographical (as well as historical) texts and objects. Yet if Æthelstan developed elements of kingship that first appeared during the reign of Alfred, he also established a model of conspicuous piety and patronage that would itself be developed further in the era of the monastic reform and the reign of King Edgar. As Simon Keynes notes, the spiritual provisions of Æthelstan’s charters look forward to those of the Regularis Concordia compiled during Edgar’s reign.167 The image of Æthelstan as an imperial ruler, a patron of imperial proportions, and a producer and donor of texts does the same. It is appropriate then that near the end of his life Æthelstan should be remembered in the poem Rex pius Æthelstan, added to the gospel book Cotton Tiberius A.ii,168 one of his gifts to Christ Church, Canterbury as: Rex pius Æðelstan, patulo famosus in orbe, cuius ubique uiget gloria lausque manet, quem Deus Angligenis solii fundamine nixum constituit regem terrigenisque ducem.169

It is equally appropriate that that tribute should have taken the form of an inscription.

166 167 168 169

See above, p. 37. Keynes, ‘Charters of King Æthelstan’. See above, n. 54. ‘Holy king Athelstan, renowned through the wide world,/ whose esteem flourishes and whose honour endures everywhere,/ whom God set as king over the English, sustained by the foundation/ of the throne, and as leader of [His] earthly forces’ (M. Lapidge, ‘Some Latin Poems’, in Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066, p. 83).

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3 Edgar and the Royal Women of the Monastic Reform No king is as closely identified with books in Anglo-Saxon art as Edgar (959–75); yet one also has to question, in a way that one did not with either Alfred or Æthelstan, how much the image of the king that has come down to us was his own creation and how much was the creation of Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester 963–84. It is possible that both of the manuscript portraits that survive were designed by Æthelwold; certainly both accompany texts that the bishop is generally believed to have authored. In the manuscript portraits, as well as in his writings about Edgar, the image that Æthelwold presents to us time and again is one of a deeply pious king with a zeal for monastic reform who, because of his virtue, is also a wise and powerful ruler. Edgar’s monetary policy, laws and charters do support this picture to a certain extent, but they also provide something of a balance in that they reveal a more iron-fisted and less peaceable ruler than we see in the saintly image created by Æthelwold. They also reveal an interest in the past, and in establishing connections between Edgar’s policies and those of Alfred, Edward the Elder and Æthelstan. Similar connections are evident in the iconography of both the manuscript portraits as well as the imagery of much of Edgar’s coinage. As regards the image of the king we should remember therefore that it was under Alfred that the christological dimensions of Anglo-Saxon kingship were first established, that they were further emphasised by Æthelstan, and that Æthelwold’s portrayal of Edgar as a Christ-like ruler was in many ways a simple development of an association already firmly in place. As regards his nature, we should bear in mind that the anti-monastic backlash that followed Edgar’s death provides evidence of just how dependent Æthelwold and the reformers were on the unopposed power of the king.1 Visually it is the frontispiece to the New Minster Charter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fols. 2r–33r) that establishes the image of King Edgar that was to remain so influential throughout his reign and beyond (fig. 7). That image is picked up in the frontispiece to the Cotton Tiberius A.iii copy of the Regularis Concordia produced at Canterbury c. 1050 (fig. 13), but generally believed to be based on a tenth-century Æthelwoldian original,2 as well as in the 1

See the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 975, MSS A, B, C, D, E, G. See also D. J. V. Fisher, ‘The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’, Cambridge Historical Jnl 10 (1952), 254–70; D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, Councils & Synods with other Documents Relating to the English Church, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1981), no. 34. 2 J. J. G. Alexander, ‘The Benedictional of St Aethelwold and Anglo-Saxon Illumination in the Reform

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform royal iconography of Æthelwold’s personal benedictional (London, British Library, MS Additional 49598) generally dated c. 973 – a manuscript that is perhaps more crucial for its contribution to the developing image of the Anglo-Saxon queen than for its depiction of kingship.3 All three of these manuscripts rely heavily on imperial Carolingian and Byzantine models, but all three also depend on aspects of kingship that can be traced back through the reigns of Æthelstan and Alfred; moreover, all three are concerned with texts, and at least the first two with the king’s role as author of texts, in a way that is uniquely Anglo-Saxon.

THE NEW MINSTER CHARTER

In 964 the secular canons were driven out of the New Minster and replaced by monks from the abbey of Abingdon, which Æthelwold had been given to reform c. 954, and where he had served as abbot until his promotion to Winchester by Edgar in 963. The New Minster Charter was issued two years later as both a record of and a justification for that event. The only transactions the manuscript documents are monastic customs and the royal protection given by the king to the abbey in exchange for the intercessory prayers of the abbot and his monks. One of the primary justifications for royal involvement in the reform detailed in chapter VII of the charter is the fact that the sinful nature of the recently expelled secular canons meant that their intercessory prayers on behalf of the king were worthless. Chapters XIIII to XVI then go on to establish that in order to remedy the situation and to prevent such a decline from ever again occurring, the king and the monastery are henceforth to be interdependent. The charter is generally agreed to have been composed by Æthelwold and, given the documented interest that he took in the illumination of his own benedictional,4 it is very likely that he was also responsible for advising on what was to be represented in the frontispiece, if not designing it himself. How much input Edgar had into the iconography of the frontispiece must remain in the realm of speculation; nevertheless, it is true that while the miniature does provide a summary of the message of the charter,5 it is not incompatible with the image of the king projected in the texts of Period’, in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, pp. 169–83, at 183; R. Deshman, ‘Benedictus Monarcha et Monarchus: Early Medieval Ruler Theology and the Anglo-Saxon Reform’, FS 22 (1988), 204–40, at 207–10 and 219. 3 See below, pp. 113–14; R. Deshman, The Benedictional of Æthelwold (Princeton, NJ, 1995), pp. 204–7 and 213–14. 4 The Benedictional’s dedicatory poem, written entirely in gold rustic capitals, states that quendam subiectum monachum circos quoque multos/ in hoc precepit fieri libro bene comptos,/ completos quoque agalmatibus uariis decoratis/ multigenis miniis pulchris necnon simul auro (M. Lapidge, ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, in his Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066 [London and Rio Grande, OH, 1993], pp. 105–49, at 144). (‘He [Æthelwold] commanded also to be made in this book many arches well adorned and filled with various figures decorated with numerous beautiful colours and with gold’, trans. G. F. Warner and H. A. Wilson, eds., The Benedictional of St Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester 963–984 [Oxford, 1910]; quoted in A. Prescott, The Benedictional of St Æthelwold: A Masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon Art [London and Toronto, 2002], p. 5.) 5 See, for example, Miller, Charters of the New Minster, pp. 107–8; Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 223.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England earlier charters. From the very beginning of his reign Edgar had been portrayed as an able and powerful basileus, whose kingship derived directly from God,6 an image of kingship that had, as we have seen, been promoted by Æthelstan. The interrelationship of text and image in the New Minster Charter is to a certain degree only to be expected as the text at least nominally represents the voice of the king. In fact, the integral nature of the two is conveyed graphically in the first two openings of the manuscript, which move from a pictorial to a symbolic to a textual portrayal of the relationship of the king to the book, to the monastery, and to Christ. The frontispiece to the New Minster Charter depicts King Edgar richly dressed in a gold-bordered cloak and trefoil crown offering the golden charter to the figure of Christ in majesty flanked by angels. Christ holds a golden book in his left hand and blesses the king with his right. Visually the charter recording the king’s judgements on monastic life at the New Minster is linked to the book of life according to which all will be judged at the Last Judgement, and the gesture of blessing suggests, as it may have done in the portrait of Æthelstan in Cotton Otho B.ix, that the presentation of the book has earned its donor the salvation he sought. Edgar is flanked by the figures of Mary and Peter, patron saints of the New Minster and representatives of the intercessory prayers offered by the monks of the abbey. The cross and cross-key which they hold are again symbols of judgement and salvation,7 as well as of the interrelationship of the worldly judgements and protection offered the monastery by the king, and the spiritual rewards which the community will aid him in achieving. Moreover, as Robert Deshman has demonstrated, the key and cross were also cognate symbols of the key of David, itself a christological symbol which appears in the second coronation ordo, the ordo which was used in Edgar’s spectacular coronation (almost certainly a second coronation) in 973, and which was no doubt used for his first coronation as well. According to the ordo, the king was invested with the uirgam uirtutis atque aequitatis (‘staff of strength and equity’), which symbolised his just rule and his imitation of Christ qui est clauis David et sceptrum domus Israel (‘who is the key of David and the sceptre of the house of Israel’).8 The typological relationship between Christ and Edgar is reinforced by the purple background against which the scene is set. Purple was a colour which symbolised both royalty and the blood of Christ, and one which had definite imperial connotations. While relatively rare in Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination, purple pages were a feature of imperial early Christian and Byzantine

6 7

See, for example, S 683, 687, 692, 695, all issued in 960 or 961. The juxtaposition of raised key and cross looks forward to the miniature of the Doubting of Thomas on fol. 56v of the Benedictional of Æthelwold in which Peter’s raised key is balanced by the cross-staff held by Christ. See further Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 196–7. 8 Deshman, Benedictional, p. 197. See P. E. Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Papst, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1968–71), II, 237–8. See also the antiphon introducing ‘Lyric 2’ of the Exeter Book poem Christ I (The Advent Lyrics): O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel, qui aperis et nemo claudit (The Exeter Book, ed. B. Muir, 2 vols. (Exeter, 1994), I, 47). The blessing following the investiture invokes the protection of the intercessors Mary and Peter, the prince of the Apostles, as well as Gregory, the apostle of the English (Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Papst, p. 238).

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform manuscripts,9 and of some of the grandest manuscripts of the Carolingian courts.10 In this context, the colour was well-suited to Edgar’s imperial style of kingship. Within Anglo-Saxon culture, however, the combination of purple and gold, the two colours which originally dominated the frontispiece, was also symbolic of the dual nature of Christ,11 of his sacrifice and of his triumph, and as such was equally suited to the theme of sacrifice on earth leading to triumph in heaven that runs throughout the charter, as well as to the assimilation of Edgar to Christ that is so much a feature of Edgar’s reign. One of the most important sources for the portrait of Edgar is the Corpus 183 portrait of Æthelstan (fig. 4). Although there are obvious differences in composition, both miniatures depict a prominently crowned king, bowed in homage, offering a book to representatives of the church and the heavenly kingdom.12 And in both portraits the king stands on earth before his saintly intercessors. As noted in the previous chapter, the fact that Æthelstan’s name heads the list of royal patrons in the Durham Liber Vitae, indicates that, like Edgar, he received the intercessory prayers of the monks in return for his gift. While Deshman has argued that in the portrait of Edgar Mary and Peter make no gesture of protection, presentation or, we might add, acceptance, the cross and key that they hold out towards the king are symbols of protection, and are being offered here in exchange for the charter held by the king. The lush acanthus border on which Edgar stands is derived from the vine-scroll and other foliate motifs of the Æthelstan portrait, the Cuthbert embroideries, and related works.13 Given Edgar’s revival of other aspects of the reigns of Æthelstan and Alfred, and Æthelwold’s documented attention to the borders of his own benedictional, it seems not unlikely that the motif was being used and developed consciously.14 A second important source for the portrait is the Anglo-Saxon depiction of the Ascension of Christ as represented by the miniature on folio 12v of the Galba Psalter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Galba A.xviii), a book commonly associated with King Æthelstan. In the Galba Psalter miniature (fig. 12) Christ enthroned within a mandorla supported by angels fills the top of the page, while below him the Virgin stands with arms outspread between two groups of apostles. In the New Minster Charter miniature, Edgar with upturned head and book looks towards Christ whose Ascension into heaven opens the door to Edgar’s own

9 10 11

12 13 14

See, for example, the sixth-century Vienna Genesis (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. theol. gr. 31), or Rossano Gospels (Rossano, Cathedral Treasury). Such as the late eighth-century Coronation Gospels (Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer) or the c. 870 Codex Aureus of St Emmeram (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm. 14000). See, for example, the description of the cross of the Crucifixion in the Dream of the Rood as simultaneously covered in blood (symbolic of Christ’s suffering and human nature), and gleaming with gold (symbolic of his eternal triumph). See also the inscription on the silver and gilt Brussels reliquary cross (Brussels, Cathedral of S. Michel): +Rod is min nama geo ic ricne cyning bær byfigynde blode bestemed (‘Cross is my name: once trembling and drenched with blood, I bore the mighty King’) (Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, ed. Backhouse et al., cat. no. 75). Cuthbert, Mary and Peter are all representative of both the individual churches dedicated to them and the heavenly kingdom of the saints. Gameson, Role of Art, pp. 119–20 and 200. See below, pp. 90 and 103.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Ascension, and to that of all humanity.15 The composition also looks forward to that of the ascension of Christ in the Benedictional of Æthelwold which, while containing a much more active figure of Christ, features similarly diademed angels and a Virgin with a similarly upturned head. It is also possible that a reference to Pentecost was intended. The charter that Edgar offers to Christ is based on God’s law, and his mission to reform the Anglo-Saxon church was in part modelled on Christ’s mission to the apostles. Pentecost was one of the times traditionally associated with the promulgation of law in Anglo-Saxon England. Moreover, within the Anglo-Saxon church it was a time for the purification of sin and union with Christ in heaven. This union, as Brad Bedingfield emphasises, is ‘approached during Rogationtide and made possible by Christ’s own raising of humanity to divinity at the Ascension’, and at Pentecost it is ‘finally realized, as mankind as well is joined with the divine, expecting the eternal continuance of that unity at the Last Judgement’.16 As such, Pentecost provided a model for the cleansing of the New Minster, and the movement from Ascension to Pentecost, a model for the text of the charter itself. In the frontispiece Edgar is positioned so as to form part of the circle of angels surrounding Christ, and it is inconceivable that the fact that the word for angels and Angles was the same would have been lost on either Edgar or Æthelwold any more than it was on Alfred or Asser. The charter begins with a reference to angelic (angelica) creation, and to the fall of the angels (angelorum), and the fact that men enjoyed the fellowship of the angels (angelorum) in paradise, and it ends with Edgar’s subscription as king of the English (Anglorum basileus).17 The frontispiece faces an elegiac couplet on folio 3r (fig. 8), written in gold uncials and designed to convey textually the relationship between Edgar and Christ depicted in the miniature. The couplet reads: SIC CELSO RESIDET SOLIO QUI CONDIDIT ASTRA REX VENERANS EADGAR PRONUS ADORAT EUM.18

As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the first word (sic) provides an explicit link to the facing miniature, while the couplet itself is arranged so that the 15

On the feast of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England, see Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, pp. 193–209. 16 Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, p. 217. 17 See below, p. 92. See also P. Wormald, ‘Germanic Power Structures: The Early English Experience’, forthcoming. A similar connection is made in the poem on Edgar’s death in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (s.a. 975, A, B and C MSS), which opens with the lines Her geendode eorðan dreamas/ Eadgar, Engla cyning, ceas him oðer leoht/ wlitig & wynsum, & þis wace forlet, lif þis læne (‘Here Edgar, king of the English, ended earthly joys, chose for himself the other light, beautiful and happy, and left this wretched and fleeting life’), and closes with an account of the divine vengeance enacted by the Brego engla (‘King of the Angels’) when man his riht tobræc (‘His rights were violated’) by the anti-monastic backlash that followed Edgar’s death. 18 ‘Thus he who created the stars sits on a lofty throne; King Edgar, inclined in veneration, adores him.’ See further M. Lapidge, ‘Æthelwold as Scholar and Teacher’, in Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. B. Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 89–117, at 96; Gameson, Role of Art, p. 7; M. Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations of the Benedictine Reform, CSASE 25 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 309–10; A. R. Rumble, Property and Piety in Early Medieval Winchester: Documents Relating to the Topography of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman City and its Minsters, Winchester Studies 4.iii (Oxford, 2002), p. 70.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform first line is on the same level as Christ in majesty, and the second line on the same level as Edgar. The difference between the heavenly and earthly kings is perhaps suggested by the use of hexameter for the first line and pentameter for the second; however, just as the word sic in the first line is used to connect the couplet to the miniature, the word rex in the second line is best understood as an apo koinou construction meant to refer to both Christ and Edgar.19 We might note further that it unites the two visually at the level of the book held in the king’s left hand, the book that will proceed to invoke their joint authority in the establishment of a new order. The joint authority of Christ and Edgar is invoked again on folio 3v (fig. 9) on which a large golden cross symbolising Christ and echoing the cross held by Mary in the frontispiece precedes the rubric Eadgar rex hoc priuilegium nouo edidit monasterio ac omnipotenti domino eiusque genitrici Mari” eius laudans magnalia concessit.20 The rubric could serve as a descriptive caption to the frontispiece, even though it contains no mention of St Peter. The large cross together with the name and title of the king, which are set apart by the use of square capitals, dominate the page and look forward to the king’s subscription at the head of the witness list on folio 30r (fig. 11). The page is also united visually to the opening of the text of the charter proper on folio 4r (fig. 10) by the similarity of the frames that surround the two panels of text. The proem of the charter opens with an enlarged chi-rho,21 the monogram of Christ, worked in gold, green and red, and the words Omnipotens totius machinae conditor.22 Together the cross and chi-rho that preface the names of Edgar and the Lord on these two pages serve as non-figural signs of their eternal and joint authority. As abstract symbols rather than images or written names, the cross and chi-rho also stand for the unrepresentable, ‘the terrible force or transcendent power that lies behind all subjectivity, power and law’,23 and give some idea of the nature of the God-given power that both Edgar and Æthelwold clearly saw the king as wielding, and that the Chronicle poem on Edgar’s death suggests was a notion of Edgar’s power that was widely current.24 The use of the noun conditor (‘creator’) recalls that of the verb condidio (‘to create’) in the first line of the couplet on folio 3r, and the image of Christ in majesty on his lofty throne in the frontispiece. All three pages in turn look 19 20 21

22 23

24

Gretsch, Benedictine Reform, p. 310. ‘King Edgar established this treaty for the New Minster and granted it to the almighty Lord and his mother Mary, in praise of His great works.’ A simple cross was used for the ‘pictorial invocation’ that prefaces charters in all but a few manuscripts prior to the reign of Eadwig (955–59), at which point the chi-rho (or chrismon) begins to appear with increasing frequency. It continued to gain in popularity during Edgar’s reign. See Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 68 and 71; E. Eisenlohr, ‘Von ligierten zu symbolischen Invokations- und Subskriptionzeichen in frümittelalterlichen Urkunden’, in Graphische Symbole in mittelalterlichen Urkunden: Beiträge zur diplomatischen Semiotik, ed. P. Rück, 3 vols. (Sigmaringen, 1996), vol. 3: Historische Hilfwissenschaften, pp. 167–262, at 187. ‘Almighty creator of the whole order of creation’. C. Douzinas, ‘Prosopon and Antiprosopon: Prolegomena for a Legal Iconology’, in Law and the Image: The Authority of Art and the Aesthetics of the Law, ed. C. Douzinas and L. Nead (Chicago, 1999), pp. 36–67, at p. 60. See above, n. 17.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England forward to the proem of the charter (chapters 1–6) which deals with the fall of the rebel angels, the creation and fall of man, and the return to glory that follows the birth and Crucifixion of Christ. The angels that surround Christ in majesty in the frontispiece are reminders of the spiritual order which preceded the fall of the rebel angels, while the figures of Mary, Edgar and Peter below help to convey the interrelationship of divine and earthly order, and the doctrine expressed in the first chapter of the proem that man was created to fill the thrones vacated by the fallen angels.25 Angels are replaced by Angles. The story of the fall of the angels and the reestablishment of divine order, as well as the story of the fall of man which follows, also provide biblical parallels for the expulsion of the ‘sinful’ secular canons from the New Minster and their replacement by Æthelwold’s reformed monks. It was God who oversaw the former event, and Edgar who oversaw the latter. Chapter VI, the chapter which provides a transition from the proem to the dispositive section of the charter, begins with the words hinc ego Eadgar (‘hence I Edgar’), signalling the fact that it is because of the actions of God detailed in the proem that Edgar has reformed the New Minster – a causal relationship that is made explicit in the chapter’s final lines: Talibus igitur exortatus doctrinis quibus nos Dominus . . . clementer ammonuit . agens Christo faciente in terris quod ipse iuste egit in celis . extricans uidelicet Domini cultura criminum spurcitias uirtutum semina sedulus agricola inserui.26

Chapter VII then begins with the rubric Qua ratione clericos eliminans monachos collocauit.27 The monastery is here identified as Christ’s ploughland (Christi cultura) establishing that it is specifically the New Minster to which the phrase ‘the Lord’s ploughland’ (Domini cultura) refers. The typological relationship established here in the text between the fertile and idyllic nature of the monastery and heaven would no doubt have called to mind the frontispiece in which the heavenly and earthly realms are united within a lush acanthus border. The reform of the New Minster is portrayed in chapter VI as not only resulting from divine precedent, but as resulting in Edgar’s own salvation, his attaining a crown in the kingdom of heaven, in words which almost literally illustrate the frontispiece. The king’s work of reform is undertaken ut ad tantam gloriam perueniens Christi sanctorumque eius celo collocatus contubernio coronatus fruerer.28 The portrait is then not simply a commemoration of the events of 964, it is perhaps far more importantly a vision of the future in which the king will

25

In the anathema in chapter IV the outcast canons (deiecti canonici) and all others who might threaten the reformed monks are themselves threatened with the same punishment that befell the rebel angels and Adam. See also, D. F. Johnson, ‘The Fall of Lucifer in Genesis A and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters’, JEGP 97 (1998), 500–21. 26 ‘Exhorted therefore by such teachings by which the Lord has kindly admonished us . . . effecting on earth at Christ’s doing what He himself has justly effected in Heaven, namely, clearing the filth of evil deeds from the Lord’s ploughland, as a diligent farmer, I have inserted the seeds of virtues’ (Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 80). 27 ‘By what manner having expelled the clerks he installed the monks.’ 28 ‘So that, attaining such great glory, placed in the heaven of Christ and his saints, furnished with a crown, I might delight in the common dwelling’ (Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 80).

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform ascend from this monastic setting into the kingdom of the saints, and will literally stand alongside Christ and Mary. The description of heaven as contubernio (‘a common dwelling’) also helps to reinforce the parallels already established between the New Minster and paradise. Moreover, as the charter would most likely have been displayed on the alter of the church,29 the New Minster community would have been eternally reminded of the relationship between the reformed church and paradise, the king and Christ, and the fact that their prayers had helped Edgar to achieve his place in heaven, and that he in turn had helped and would continue to help them on the same road to paradise. The relationship between contemporary events and biblical ‘history’ and the parallels drawn between Christ and Edgar, and heaven and the New Minster, quite clearly aided Æthelwold in his portrayal of Edgar as a saintly, Christ-like ruler, but they also no doubt abetted Edgar in his efforts to portray himself as all-powerful, and to achieve complete control over his kingdom. The description of the Almighty as totius machinae conditor in the proem can also be understood as a type of title, and in this respect it looks forward to the description of Edgar and the title granted him in chapter VI. Just as the Almighty was totius machinae conditor, Edgar is through the favour and grace of the Almighty totius Albionis basileus.30 Certainly earlier kings had made similar connections in their charters,31 however, the verbal parallels are never quite as exact. A 956 charter of Eadwig (S 595), for example, opens with the words Regnante ac gubernante domino nostro Jhesu Christi,32 and then describes Eadwig as Anglorum Rex ac totius britannice telluris gubernator et rector.33 The New Minster Charter is also not the first of Edgar’s charters in which this parallel is made. A charter of 961 granting twenty-two hides of land at Ringwood, Hants, to St Mary’s church, Abingdon (S 690), opens with a chi-rho similar in form to, but far less elaborate than, that of the New Minster Charter, and the words Almus totius cosmi fabricae conditor.34 The rest of the proem provides a much abbreviated description of Creation and the fall of man which leads to the reasons for the issuing of the charter by EADGAR totius Brittaniæ gubernator et rector.35 Edgar’s name is not only made to stand out by the use of rustic capitals, but his name and title begin a new line directly beneath the name and title of the Lord four lines above. In addition, the two arms of the X of the chi-rho monogram focus our attention on the beginning of these two lines; although, as not all charters are as neatly designed as S 690 appears to have been, one must be cautious in speculating on just how deliberate this feature actually was.36 One would like to see this awareness of the christological dimensions of Edgar’s kingship in the earliest years of his reign as evidence that the image of the 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Keynes, Liber Vitae, p. 27. ‘King of the whole of Albion’. It is the parallel phrasing rather than the titles granted Edgar that is crucial here. Edgar had used similar titles in his own charters as early as 960. See, for example, S 680, 683, 687, 690, 691, 692, 693. ‘With our Lord Jesus Christ reigning and governing’. ‘King of the English, governor and ruler of the whole of the land of Britain’. ‘Bountiful creator of the whole fabric of the universe’. ‘EDGAR, governor and ruler of the whole of Britain’. See also S 703. An image of the charter is available at: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/sdk13/chartwww/DigImages.html.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England king portrayed in the New Minster Charter was not entirely of Æthelwold’s making but based on established precedent, going back ultimately to the reign of Alfred and perhaps developed here at the instigation of the king himself;37 unfortunately it is impossible to draw such conclusions from the charter evidence alone. ‘Edgar A’, the scribe of both S 690 and S 703, has been identified by a number of scholars as Æthelwold, although there is by no means universal consensus on this point.38 As we shall see below, however, Edgar’s law codes and his coins can be used to flesh out some of the picture, providing evidence that the king was certainly aware of the power of his own image as propaganda, as well as the sources from which that image derived. The opening of the charter, and even the composition of the frontispiece and elegiac distich, are invoked for a final time on folio 30r (fig. 11), the beginning of the list of witnesses. At the top of the page is the dating clause, and beneath it, taking up just over half of the page, is the king’s subscription. Beginning on folio 30r there is also an increase from fourteen to fifteen lines per page, and a reduction in the size of the script. While there can be no certainty in the matter, the new format may have been adopted to allow for just this arrangement. The complexities of the charter, and of the interrelationship established between the text and the images and symbols that preface it, are sufficient to suggest that details of page layout are unlikely to have been left to chance. In any case, whether by design or by happy circumstance, the effect of the arrangement is to set apart the name of the king who issued the charter and the details of its production from the rest of the witnesses, whose subscriptions, beginning with that of Archbishop Dunstan, follow on folios 30v–32v. The dating clause with its invocation of the Lord’s incarnation is a much expanded version of the standard formula, but the location of the words anno incarnationis dominice at the top of the page call to mind the image of Christ incarnate at the top of the frontispiece, as well as the Creation invoked in the text of both the couplet and the opening of the charter. The special nature of this charter and its production is further emphasised by the use of the grecisms singrapha and caraxantur.39 The special nature of the king, the theoretical voice of authority within the charter, is conveyed by the length of his subscription, which reads +EGO EADGAR . diuina largiente gratia Anglorum basileus hoc priuilegii donum nostro largiens redemtori locoque eius sanctissimo primus om[n]ium regum monachorum inibi collegium constituens manu propria signum agiae cruces imprimens confirmaui.40

37

While the amount of input kings had into the formulation of their charters is unclear, it is unlikely that the titles by which they are identified would have been left entirely to the whims of the scribes. Morever, if Keynes is correct in his arguments for diplomas being the products of a royal chancery (Keynes, Diplomas, passim), it is reasonable to assume a certain amount of royal control over their formulation. 38 For the various arguments for and against see Lapidge, ‘Æthelwold as Scholar’, pp. 92–5; Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 70–6; S. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon Abbey, 2 vols., Anglo-Saxon Charters VII (London, 2000), I, pp. lxxxiv–cxxxi. 39 Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 92 notes 123 and 124. On grecisms as one characteristic of Æthelwold’s ‘hermeneutic’ style, see Lapidge, ‘Æthelwold as Scholar’. 40 ‘+ I Edgar, king of the English with divine grace grants, granting this gift of privilege to our Redeemer and His most holy place, establishing first of all the king’s company of monks in that place, making the

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform The large cross preceding the king’s name recalls that of the rubric on folio 3v, while the use of capital letters and the title granted the king recall the clause that introduces the dispositive section of the charter in chapter VI. Edgar is described here as granting the charter to ‘our Redeemer’, which is exactly what he is depicted as doing in the frontispiece. The identification of the New Minster as the Lord’s ‘most holy place’ serves to reinforce the parallel established both in the frontispiece and in the first seven chapters of the charter between the New Minster and paradise. Whatever Edgar’s actual role in the production of the manuscript of the charter, there is no single manuscript surviving from Anglo-Saxon England that is as grandly and as carefully conceived and executed as this one.41 There is also no more detailed and coherent a statement of kingship in all its forms, including the king’s role as the author of texts.

THE REGULARIS CONCORDIA

The image of Edgar created in the New Minster Charter is supported in full by the image projected in the Regularis Concordia, composed by Æthelwold in the early 970s. The Regularis Concordia is a consuetudinary the purpose of which was to establish a uniform observance for English monks and nuns. It could also be described as ‘a charter of the revival of religious life in tenth century England’.42 It was augmented which a lengthy prologue extolling the role of King Edgar and Queen Ælfthryth in the reform, and an epilogue repeating the virtues of King Edgar, both written in Æthelwold’s characteristic hermeneutic style. British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, produced at Christ Church Canterbury around the middle of the eleventh century preserves a frontispiece depicting Edgar enthroned between two figures generally identified as Bishop Æthelwold and Archbishop Dunstan (fig. 13),43 which is believed to be a copy of a reform period original,44 possibly designed by Æthelwold himself.45 As presently bound, the Regularis Concordia is followed by a copy of the Rule of St Benedict (fols. 118–63) prefaced by a miniature of Benedict enthroned and presented with a copy of his Rule (fol. 117v; fig. 14), and followed by three texts associated with the court of Louis the Pious.46 The manuscript also contains a collection of other texts

41 42 43

44 45 46

symbol of the Holy Cross with my own hand, have confirmed’ (trans. Rumble, Property and Piety, pp. 92–3). As Simon Keynes points out (Liber Vitae, p. 27), even the later additions are written in gold. D. H. Turner in Golden Age, ed. Backhouse et al., cat. no. 28, p. 47. But see B. Withers, ‘Interaction of Word and Image in Anglo-Saxon Art, II: Scrolls and Codex in the Frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia’, Old English Newsletter 31.1 (1997), 38–40, for alternative possibilities. The identification of the three as Edgar, Æthelwold and Dunstan is accepted here because it harmonises well with the text of the prologue that the frontispiece prefaces, as well as with the later historical record. The only other surviving illustrated Anglo-Saxon copy of the Regularis Concordia (Durham, Cathedral Library, MS B.iii.32), also from Christ Church Canterbury, and also dated c. 1050, is prefaced by a miniature depicting only Æthelwold and Dunstan synthronoi. Alexander, ‘Benedictional of St Æthelwold’, p. 183; Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, pp. 207–10 and 219. Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 210. The texts are: (1) the final part of Memoriale qualiter (a supplement to the Benedictine Rule), (2) the thirty-sixth article of the Mainz council of 813, (3) an Aachen capitualary of 818–19. For the relationship of these texts to the Regularis Concordia, see Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 229.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England which most scholarly treatments tend to ignore.47 These texts indicate that the manuscript was produced for private use within the monastery rather than for public display on the altar of the church – as was the case with the New Minster Charter. It is only the Benedictine Rule and the Regularis Concordia, however, that are prefaced by miniatures, making it clear that it was these two works that were considered to be of special importance. As originally bound, the Benedictine Rule and accompanying Carolingian texts preceded the Regularis Concordia and its frontispiece, demonstrating codicologically that the Carolingian reform was both the source and the model for the later Anglo-Saxon reform, and that Edgar’s role as king and reformer was to be understood as similar to that of Louis the Pious.48 Robert Deshman has argued that it was the redactor of the Tiberius A.iii manuscript who first appended the Regularis Concordia to the Benedictine Rule and associated texts, so that it is necessary to consider what the portrait of Edgar might have meant in a tenth-century context, before proceeding to examine the additional meaning it takes on through its association with the miniature of Benedict. It is important to remember, however, that Æthelwold had also made a translation of the Benedictine Rule into Old English, possibly as early as the 940s or 950s,49 and there are echoes of the Rule in the prologue to the Regularis Concordia, so that the relationship between Benedict as author (and authority) and the ‘authors’ of the primary document of the Anglo-Saxon reform was certainly a part of his overall vision. It was simply left to later generations to visualise the relationship between them. It is equally important to remember, especially given the emphasis on the transmission of texts in both the miniatures, that the frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia may have come to mean something very different to a mid-eleventh-century audience than it had meant to a reform-period audience.50 47

The contents of the manuscript (fols. 2–173) in their original order are as follows: portrait of Benedict (fol. 117v); Rule of St Benedict (fols. 118–63v); Ambrosius Autpertus’s injunction to observe the Rule of St Benedict (fols. 163v–164); the conclusion of the Memoriale qualiter, chs. 10–19 (fols. 164–168v); De festivitatibus anni (fols. 168v–169); Capitulare monasticum (fols. 169–73); frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia (fol. 2v); Regularis Concordia (fols. 3–27v); a collection of prognostics from dreams, the moon and thunder (fols. 27v–43); note on Adam, Noah, and other Old Testament figures, on the ages of the world, on Friday feasts, and on the age of the Virgin (fols. 43–4); prayers (fols. 44–53); handbook for a confessor (fols. 53–56v); Office of All Saints (vespers and lauds) (fols. 57–60v); Ælfric’s Colloquy (fols. 60v–64v); prognostics (fol. 65rv); Ælfric’s De temporibus anni (incomplete) (fols. 65v–73); on the dimensions of Noah’s ark, St Peter’s, the Temple of Solomon, the names of the thieves hanged with Christ (fol. 73rv); Life of St Margaret (fols. 73v–77v); Ælfic, Catholic Homily II.xiv (fols. 77v–83); the Sunday Letter (fols. 83–7); the Devil’s account of the next world (fols. 87–88v); twelve short homiletic pieces (fols. 88v–93v); Examination of a bishop and directions for a confessor (fols. 93v–95); treatise on monastic sign language (fols. 97–101); lapidary (fols. 101v–102); excerpt from Isidore’s Synonyma (§§88–96) (fols.102–3); Rule of St Benedict, ch. iv (fols. 103–5); Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis, chs. 14 and 26 (fols. 105v–106); a charm (fol. 106); Alfric’s Pastoral Letter III (fols. 106–107v); Office of the Virgin (fols. 107v–115v). 48 Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 229. On the Continental sources and inspirations for the text of the Regularis Concordia, see most especially P. Wormald, ‘Æthelwold and his continental Counterparts: Contact, Comparison, Contrast’, in Bishop Æthelwold, ed. Yorke, pp. 13–42. 49 E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis (London, 1962), II, ch. 37, p. 111; Gretsch, Benedictine Reform, pp. 239–40. 50 See R. Gameson, ‘English Manuscript Art in the Mid-Eleventh Century: The Decorative Tradition’, The Antiquaries Jnl 71 (1991), 64–122, at 76–9.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform The frontispiece of the Regularis Concordia, like that of the New Minster Charter, is divided into two registers. In the upper register Edgar, Æthelwold and Dunstan sit beneath three arches on what appears to be a single continuous throne. The Trinitarian symbolism of the composition is obvious. The three men grasp in their hands a single uninscribed scroll, an unambiguous representation of the three as joint authors of the text that follows. As it was apparently Edgar who convened the council that drew up the document, Dunstan who inspired it, and Æthelwold who authored it,51 the image can be described as a true author portrait in every sense of the word, depicting in a single frame the ‘author-functions’ of patron, writer and muse. Benjamin Withers has made a good case for the scroll, with its sinuous contrast to the rectangular codex in which it is contained, representing not just the Rule, but the process of production itself,52 an interpretation supported by the way in which the two clerics turn toward Edgar as if intent on the judgements and decrees they will receive from him. Below the three authors is a monk who has done just what the text of the Benedictine Rule advises and girded his loins with the ‘faith and good works’ to which he is also exhorted by the Regularis Concordia.53 It is reasonable to assume that this image was intended to represent active reception, paralleling the process of active production suggested in the upper register. The monk’s dynamic pose of genuflection portrays the gratefulness of the monastic community, and provides a formal contrast to the static, timeless image of authority above him. His eyes, as well as those of Dunstan and Æthelwold, focus our attention on Edgar who stares fixedly out at us like Christ in majesty, or like the impressively imperial portraits of the Ottonian emperor Otto III. While the motif of the scroll is used to unite the three men to each other, to the text, and to the monk below them, it is also significant that it separates Edgar’s head, shoulders and the palm branch that he holds, from his body. The arrangement is strikingly like that found in the portrait of Otto III on folio 16r of the c. 996 Aachen (or Liuthar) Gospels (Aachen, Cathedral Treasury), where a scroll carried by the symbols of the four evangelists divides the emperor’s head from his body (fig. 15). In his famous discussion of the Aachen Gospels portrait, Ernst Kantorowicz suggested that the way in which the scroll crossed the king’s body was meant to represent the idea of the king’s ‘two bodies’: the body itself representing the mortal king, and the staring frontal head crowned by God, his eternal and divinely granted authority.54 The scroll in the portrait of Edgar is likely to have carried a similar meaning, especially given the repeated references made to the sacral nature of Edgar’s kingship. But the similarity between the portraits

51

Prologue to the Regularis Concordia, chs. 4 and 7 (Regularis Concordia Anglicae Nationis Monachorum Sanctimonialiumque, ed. T. Symons [New York, 1953], pp. 2 and 4); Blake, Liber Eliensis, II, ch. 37, p. 111. 52 Withers, ‘Interaction of Word and Image’. Withers goes further and suggests that the scroll is a sign of oral rather than written production (p. 39). 53 Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 205. 54 Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, pp. 61–78. See also Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, I, 60–1. This interpretation has also been questioned: see F. Mütherich, ‘Zur Datierung des Aachener ottonischen Evangeliars’, Aachener Kunstblätter 32 (1966), 66–9, at 66.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England raises the problem of sources. The Tiberius A.iii portrait of c. 1050 is thought to be a copy of a reform era original, but it is impossible to determine just how close a copy it may have been. The two portraits of Æthelstan discussed in the previous chapter are a reminder of how even a very close copy can differ from its model in certain essential details.55 If the detail of the scroll was present in the original Æthelwoldian portrait of Edgar (accepting that there was an original Æthelwoldian portrait), then it is possible that the iconography of Anglo-Saxon kingship may have influenced that of the Ottonians; if it was not, the arrangement of the scroll may have been a borrowing from the increasingly influential repertoire of Ottonian art by the eleventh-century artist. Whatever the case, contacts between the Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon courts at about the time that the original portrait of Edgar is thought to have been produced are certain. The Vita Sancti Oswaldi records an embassy to the court of Otto I, an exchange of gifts, and the conclusion of a peace treaty between Otto and Edgar which seems to have taken place in 972.56 But then there is no reason to assume that contacts between the two courts had lapsed since the reign of Æthelstan, and both Edgar and Æthelstan are known to have entertained considerable numbers foreigners at their own courts. While the bodies of the kings are treated similarly in the two portraits, there are also important differences between their larger meanings and contexts. Otto III is shown receiving a book, not authoring (or authorising) one, and he is surrounded by evangelist symbols, the hand of God and a personification of the earth (beneath his throne), with the members of his court arranged below him. The portrait is a grandiose statement of the exalted, sacral nature of the kingship the Ottonians were claiming for themselves by the end of the tenth century.57 Edgar, on the other hand, is surrounded by his co-authors. Edgar’s authority, manifested in the text of the Regularis Concordia and symbolised by the scroll was eternal; and his claim to eternal authority through the written text had a degree of truth to it that Otto’s portrait did not. It was in the text that the ‘two bodies’ of the Anglo-Saxon king came together. The book itself was also an earthly, material body, while the Rule it contained was enduring law which had its origin in Christ’s eternal law. Because it was the product of a united court and church, the Regularis Concordia was also literally a union of the temporal and the spiritual, an expression of regnum et sacerdotum, which had no parallel in Ottonian manuscript illumination. Of equal importance may be the fact that Edgar had also been dead for about seventy-five years by the time of the production of Tiberius A.iii, and the image had therefore taken on additional meanings. Edgar’s kingship did now have both an historical and an eternal, or spiritual dimension,58 and the palm that he holds 55

On manuscript ‘copies’ in Anglo-Saxon England see especially W. Noel, The Harley Psalter (Cambridge, 1995). 56 K. Leyser, ‘Ottonians and Wessex’, in his Communications and Power, pp. 95–7. Byrhtferth, Vita Sancti Oswaldi, in The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. J. Raine, 3 vols., Rolls Series 71 (London, 1879; repr. 1965), I, 435. 57 Mayr-Harting (Ottonian Book Illumination, p. 60) suggests that the manuscript was produced at the time of Otto’s coronation in 996. 58 The haloes, presumably not part of an Æthelwoldian original, suggest the same for the two clerics.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform indicates quite literally that he is now amongst the saints in heaven. It also suggests that the intercessory prayers of the monastic community symbolised by the figures of Mary and Peter in the New Minster Charter, and by Dunstan, Æthelwold and the nameless monk in this manuscript, had succeeded in bringing about his ascent into heaven. The co-enthronement of the three figures might relate further to actual architectural developments in Winchester. The west-work added to the Old Minster in Winchester between 974 and 980, would certainly have been in the planning stages by 973, and could well have been contemporary with the design of the Regularis Concordia frontispiece. If the Biddles are correct in suggesting that it would have housed a royal throne (as was the case with many of its continental models, such as Corvey or Aachen), then we must imagine both Edgar and Æthelwold envisaging the king enthroned in the west end of the church and the bishop enthroned in the east end. Archaeological evidence reveals that the west-work would have been impressive indeed: twenty-three metres square and more than thirty-five metres high.59 While there can be no certainty in the matter, a royal chapel within the Old Minster would have been particularly appropriate as the royal palace is thought to have been immediately opposite the west end of the church, and the cemetery over which the west-work was constructed was known to house a number of royal burials.60 Real architectural space, or at least the balance of authority symbolised by that space, may then have been referenced in the manuscript drawing. As noted above, Robert Deshman was of the opinion that the Regularis Concordia and the Benedictine Rule were first united by the compiler of Tiberius A.iii, and if this was indeed the case, the frontispieces to these two texts (figs. 13 and 14) and the relationship between them must be understood in terms of what they would have meant to an eleventh-century audience as well as what they might have meant to an audience of the 970s. Richard Gameson, in his study of manuscript illumination at Canterbury in the mid-eleventh century, suggested that the manuscript might have been the product of a ‘resurgence of interest shortly before the Conquest in the golden age of reformed monasticism, its heroes and what they stood for’.61 In this context, both the portrait of Benedict and the frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia may have been more important for what they had to say about the history and development of monasticism in Anglo-Saxon England in general, and at Canterbury in particular, than for what they revealed about the individual men depicted. These men and their texts represented the foundations on which late Anglo-Saxon monasticism had been built, but their images have also been worked into a program that alludes to the reception and production of texts at Christ Church. There is no doubt that the overall compositions of the two frontispieces with their division into registers, and the repeated figure of the genuflecting monk girded with the Rule were meant to mirror one another. The portrait of Benedict, however, is also intended to mirror 59 60 61

M. Biddle, ‘Felix Urbs Winthonia’, p. 138. Biddle, ‘Felix Urbs Winthonia’, p. 138. Gameson, ‘English Manuscript Art’, p. 77.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England the miniature of Benedict presenting his Rule to a group of monks in the Arundel Psalter (London, British Library, MS Arundel 155, fol. 133), painted (or at least generally thought to have been painted) at Christ Church, Canterbury between 1012 and 1023 by the famous Canterbury scribe Eadwig Basan.62 The figure embracing Benedict’s feet in Tiberius A.iii, is Eadwig, and is copied from his ‘self-portrait’ in a similar position in the Arundel Psalter miniature. In the Tiberius A.iii portrait Benedict’s body is enthroned frontally, a pose that clearly relates him as author of the Benedictine Rule to Edgar, Æthelwold and Dunstan as authors of the Regularis Concordia, however the parallels between the saintly abbot with his diadem and the lily-crowned Edgar are not as exact as has been implied.63 Edgar is, as we have seen, immoveable and eternal with his formal, frontal stare, while Benedict is depicted in a far more active pose, with one hand opening the book on the reading desk in front of him, and his head and eyes turned towards it. He is presumably in the act of expounding his Rule to the three eager monks who stand before him, while Edgar displays his role as author and ruler, but is not shown either actively reading or teaching. Benedict’s pose is in fact much more akin to that of the figure to Edgar’s right than it is to Edgar’s; indeed, the king’s stasis contrasts markedly with the action of every other figure in the two miniatures, and may have been intended to distinguish him, as the secular authority behind the text, from the monastic leaders and communities (represented by the monks) who were charged with enacting and living it.64 A likeness has also been drawn between Edgar’s chlamys, fastened in the middle by a brooch, and Benedict’s cope, also fastened in the middle; but the large rectangular phylactery in the middle of Benedict’s chest, a detail copied from the Arundel Psalter portrait, is nothing like the small circular brooch that Edgar wears. Also copied from the Arundel miniature is the diadem with its flying infulae. By the middle of the eleventh century the diadem had become a traditional attribute of Benedict (albeit one with its roots in the reform period),65 and within the context of Tiberius A.iii one that again distinguishes him from, rather than assimilates him to, the lily-crowned king. The king’s attire may have been designed simply to maintain the visual similarity between Edgar and the two men who flank him, both of whom wear vestments that are strictly symmetrical. Benedict’s attire, on the other hand, is most certainly meant to allude to the Arundel Psalter portrait, a part of Canterbury history and an image associated with Canterbury scribal tradition. It is surely significant in this regard that it was Eadwig Basan the scribe and probably artist of the Arundel Psalter who is credited with developing the Anglo-Caroline minuscule script that became popular 62

See Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 66; R. Gameson, ‘Manuscript Art at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the Generation after Dunstan’, in St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult, ed. N. Ramsay, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-Brown (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 187–220; R. W. Pfaff, ‘Eadui Basan: Scriptorium Princeps?’ in England in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. Hicks (Stamford, 1992), pp. 267–83; C. E. Karkov, ‘Writing and Having Written: Word and Image in the Eadwig Gospels’, in Writing in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. A. R. Rumble, forthcoming. 63 See, for example, Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 206. 64 For an illuminating discussion of how subtleties of style and pose can be used to make such distinctions, see H. Maguire, The Icons of their Bodies: Saints and their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996). 65 Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 117–21, 173, 180, 203, 209, 213.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform throughout English scriptoria during the second quarter of the eleventh century.66 Without doubt he was its most famous practitioner. Caroline minuscule had first been introduced into England during the reform period, though it was used differently by scriptoria connected with Æthelwold (Style I) and scriptoria connected with Dunstan (Style II).67 Eadwig’s script represented a harmonious blend of these earlier styles, and, together with his production of the portrait of Benedict on which the Tiberius A.iii portrait is modelled, it indicates that Eadwig must take his place as one of the historical ‘authors’ of the texts that make up the manuscript. Perhaps, if Tiberius A.iii was produced around the time of his death,68 it was compiled in part to commemorate him. Tiberius A.iii was a private monastic manuscript, and it has also been suggested that Eadwig may have been its original owner, perhaps even the compiler of the manuscript, though naturally we cannot be certain of this.69 Within this chain of ‘authors’ the differences between the frozen, frontal portrayal of Edgar, and the active poses of the ecclesiastical and monastic figures again become important. Edgar appears as the historical authority behind the reform and its texts, a king whose authority is itself authorised by Christ, and whose person is part of the writing of monastic history, but he is not literally a scribe or author in the mode of Æthelwold, Dunstan, Eadwig and Benedict, no matter how close his involvement with the production of that text may have been.

IMPERIAL AUTHORITY

Both the God-given and imperial nature of Edgar’s authority suggested in the Tiberius A.iii portrait are also manifested in the opening words of the prologue of the Regularis Concordia: Gloriosus etenim Eadgar, Christi opitulante gratia Anglorum ceterarumque gentium intra ambitum Britannicae insulae degentium rex egregius.70 Whether based on a reform-era original or not, the connection between the pictorial and textual authority of the king is strengthened by the way in which the right end of the scroll overlaps the border and leads the reader’s eye 66

67 68 69

70

See in particular T. A. M. Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), no. 24; D. N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030 (Woodbridge, 1993); Pfaff, ‘Eadui Basan’. See Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 144–5; M. P. Brown, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (Toronto, 1991), pp. 56–7. Pfaff, ‘Eadui’, p. 280. Pfaff (‘Eadui’, p. 280), following Ker (no. 186, p. 240), notes that a late eleventh-century marginal inscription on fol. 164 of the manuscript reads Eadui m[. . .] me ah, with munuc being the illegible word. ‘The presumption is that the writer of these words thought that an “Eadui” either possessed the book or had obtained the book, or was the author (“owner”) of the Benedict of Aniane treatise on the Rule or even the maker of the collection of largely monastic documents that comprise the codex’ (p. 281). Unfortunately, we cannot now determine whether this ‘Eadui’ was indeed Eadwig Basan, or whether the late eleventh-century writer might not have associated the book with Eadwig because of its pictorial referencing of the Arundel Psalter. ‘Edgar the glorious, by the grace of Christ illustrious king of the English and of the other peoples dwelling within the bounds of the island of Britain’ (Regularis Concordia, ed. Symons, p. 1). England is also now perceived as a bounded geographical entity, although a country is still comprised of the people that live within those bounds.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England directly into the text – a pointer to the final product of the process of production it is likely to signify. Capital letters are used to highlight the name and title of the king. The title itself is a grand elaboration of a traditional formula seen in charters from the seventh century onwards,71 and is very similar in spirit to Æthelwold’s description of Edgar in the tract entitled ‘Edgar’s Establishment of the Monasteries’, in which the king þurh Godes gyfe ealne Angelcynnes anweald begeat.72 Just as the titles used in these texts place Edgar firmly within the history and development of Anglo-Saxon kingship, so too does their possible use of earlier sources. The prologue to the Regularis Concordia likens Edgar’s role as king to that of the Good Shepherd: Regali utique functus officio ueluti Pastorum Pastor sollicitus a rabidis perfidorum rictibus, uti hiantibus luporum faucibus, oues quas Domini largiente gratia studiosus collegerat muniendo eripuit.73

The specific reference is to I Peter 5:4, but the identification of the king with the Good Shepherd develops a metaphor found in the Benedictine Rule in which the abbot is described as a shepherd watching over the sheep of the monastery, and awaiting the arrival of Christ the Shepherd at the Last Judgement.74 The same language used to describe Edgar in the Regularis Concordia is applied to Æthelwold himself in the dedicatory poem on folios 4v–5r of the Benedictional of Æthelwold, in which the abbot is described as the boanerges (literally ‘sons [sic] of thunder’),75 who had the book made deoque preces effundere sacras pro grege commisso nullum quo perdat ouilis agniculum paruum, ualeat sed dicere laetus: ‘memet ego adsigno ecce tibi pueros quoque quos tu seruandos mihi iam dederas; nullum lupus audax exillis rapuit lurcon temet faciente’.76

The repetition of the pastoral imagery does help to establish a likeness between Benedict, Edgar and Æthelwold in their role as guardians of their respective flocks, but it also echoes the pastoral imagery of the Regula Pastoralis

71 72 73

74 75 76

For a particularly close parallel see S 606, a charter issued by Eadwig in 956 granting land to Æthelwold, his fideli ministro (‘faithful minister’). ‘Obtained the rule of all England through the grace of God’ (Councils & Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 146). ‘Thus in fulfilment of his royal office, even as the Good Shepherd, he carefully rescued and defended from the savage open mouths of the wicked – as it were the gaping jaws of wolves – those sheep which by God’s grace he had diligently gathered together’ (Regularis Concordia, ed. Symons, p. 2). See also ch. XIV of the New Minster Charter on the ways in which the king should defend the abbot and worshipping monks: Mutuo namque confortati iuuamine . in nullo a regul” preceptis discordantes . Domini gregem non mercennarii sed pastores fidissimi . luporum rictibus eximentes intrepidi defendant (‘And indeed, comforted by reciprocal help, dissenting in no respect from the commands of the Rule, not as hirelings but as most faithful shepherds let them, intrepid, defend the Lord’s flock, delivering it from the jaws of wolves’ [Rumble. Property and Piety, p. 88]). Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, pp. 207–8. On which see Lapidge, ‘Æthelwold as Scholar and Teacher’, p. 107. Lapidge, ‘Hermeneutic Style’, p. 144 (‘pour forth the holy prayers to God for the flock committed to him, and that he may lose no little lambkin of the fold, but may be able to say joyfully, “Lo I present to thee myself and the children whom thou didst give me to keep; by they aid none of them has the fierce ravening wolf snatched away” ’, trans. Prescott, Benedictional, p. 5). The reference both here and in the description of Edgar in the Regularis Concordia is to I Peter 5:4 (see Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, pp. 207, 225).

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform and the uses made of that imagery by Alfred and Asser at the end of the ninth century. Mechthild Gretsch has pointed out that copies of the Benedictine Rule in its receptus form are very likely to have been imported into England in the late ninth century, even though none has survived.77 If that was indeed the case, the mid-tenth-century reform may be seen as an extension of a process begun by Alfred and his bishops, and the merging of the roles of king, abbot, bishop and Benedict by Edgar and Æthelwold, a development of the merging of the roles of king, bishop and Gregory by Alfred and Asser. Even if copies of the Benedictine Rule were not available in England in Alfred’s day, Alfredian church reform was undoubtedly the historical basis on which Edgar’s monastic reform rested,78 and it is inconceivable that the tenth-century reformers would have been unaware of Alfred’s use of the pastoral model of kingship. Two copies of Alfred’s translation of the Regula Pastoralis survive in manuscripts dating from the second half of the tenth century, and are thus roughly contemporary with the reform: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 12 (possibly of Worcester provenance), and London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B.ii (from south-eastern England).79 That Æthelwold in particular may have been aware of Alfred’s text is further suggested by the fact that his tract on ‘Edgar’s Establishment of the Monasteries’ is likely to have been written as a prologue to his translation of the Benedictine Rule,80 and if this was indeed the case would have prefaced that text in much the same way as Alfred’s letter prefaced his translation of the Regula Pastoralis. The portrait it paints of Edgar has much in common with the portrait of Alfred created in his preface, although it is of course written in Æthelwold’s characteristically inflated style. It opens by looking back to the past and a lost golden age,81 and then proceeds to chart the series of events that have led up to the ignorance and religious decay that Edgar has inherited from his brother. Like Alfred he is presented as bringing unity to his kingdom and peace and prosperity to his people: & þæs rices twislunge eft to annesse brohte, & swa gesundlice ealles weold þæt þa þe on æran timan lifes w”ron & his hyldran gemundon & heora dæda gefyrn tocneowan, þearle swiþe wundredon & wafiende cwædon: ‘Hit is la formicel Godes wunder þæt þysum cildgeongum cynincge þus gesundfullice eallu þing underþeodde synt on his cynelicum anwealde; his foregengan, þe geþungene wæron on ylde & on gleawscype swiþe bescawede & forewittige, [and] on ænegum gewinne earfoþwylde, næfre þisne andweald

77 78 79

Gretsch, Benedictine Reform, pp. 248–9 and 259–60. Dumville, Wessex and England, p. 185. A third manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, MS R.5.22 (117), fols. 72–158, is of tenth- or eleventh-century date. 80 The text mentions the regul (rule) or observance of þæs halgan regules (‘this holy rule’) in several places, and is appended to the Old English translation of the Rule in the early twelfth-century London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A.x. See Councils & Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., pp. 142, 150, 151, 152; D. Whitelock, ‘The Authorship of the Account of King Edgar’s Establishment of Monasteries’, in Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. J. Rosier (The Hague and Paris, 1970), pp. 125–56. 81 D. J. Dales notes that the second paragraph of the prologue to the Regularis Concordia also looks back to a lost golden age, and cites Alfred’s preface as a parallel. See D. J. Dales, ‘The Spirit of the Regularis Concordia and the Hand of St Dunstan’, in St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult, ed. Ramsay et al., pp. 45–56, at 47 and note 11.

101

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England on swa micelre sibbe smyltnesse gehealdan ne mihton, naþor ne mid gefeohte, ne med scette.’82

Also like Alfred, Edgar ordered a Latin text (the Benedictine Rule) to be translated into English as part of his desire that religious men and women acquire knowledge:83 Þurh þises wisdomes lust he het þisne regul of læden gereorde on englisc geþeodan.84 While Æthelwold was the author of ‘Edgar’s Establishment of the Monasteries’, it is evident that Edgar too was anxious both to connect himself with his glorious ancestors, and to distinguish his reign as the start of a new golden age. Edgar’s coinage, for example, indicates that he was looking to the past for aspects of both his monetary policy and the iconographic details of certain designs. A unique London halfpenny issued early in his reign is a direct copy of Alfred’s London Monogram penny, while his Type (a) halfpennies,85 which have a spray of flowers on the reverse, are reminiscent of a type issued in the Middle Period of Edward the Elder’s reign.86 Mark Blackburn places the issue of Alfred’s London Monogram coins at c. 880, and suggests that they were struck in order to commemorate Alfred’s resumption of control over the city after the death of Ceolwulf of Mercia,87 while Edward the Elder’s coins date from the period 900–918, the period during which Mercia and Wessex were united under Edward and his sister Æthelflæd. Edgar’s copies can be no more precisely dated than 959–72, but if they were issued early in his reign, it is possible that he was using them as a way of commemorating the reunification of the kingdom under one king after the death of his brother Eadwig.88 Dolley and Metcalf suggest a more generally political motivation for the revival of the Alfredian types, speculating on whether they might not in some way be intended to associate the king with ‘the great-grandfather whose work of liberation and consolidation Eadgar can be said

82

83

84 85

86 87 88

Councils & Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 146: ‘And [he] brought unity back to this divided kingdom, and governed all so prosperously that those who had lived in earlier times and remembered his ancestors and knew of their former deeds, wondered very much and said in astonishment: “It is truly a very great wonder of God that all things in his royal jurisdiction are thus prosperously subjugated to this young king; his ancestors, who were mature in age and in wisdom very discriminating and far seeing [and] in any struggle hard to subdue, never were able to hold this kingdom in such great peace, neither with battle, nor with tribute.” ’ Gretsch (Benedictine Reform, p. 123) notes that the two texts are also similar in that both were aimed at an audience ‘rather different’ from that for which they were originally intended. Alfred’s translation of the Regula Pastoralis into Old English would not have been needed by the bishops (presumably literate in Latin) to whom the preface was addressed. Similarly, Æthelwold’s prologue, particularly its final section on church property, shows signs of being directed at ‘a more educated audience in higher ecclesiastical or worldly ranks’ than its stated audience of those literate only in the vernacular. Councils & Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 151: ‘Through desire for this wisdom he commanded this rule to be translated from the Latin language into English.’ R. H. M. Dolley and D. M. Metcalf, ‘The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, pp. 136–68, at p. 160 and pl. XIV:16; Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth-Century England, p. 204, pl. 25:394. Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Coinage under Eadgar’, p. 160 and pl. XIV:17; Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth-Century England, pp. 203–4 and pl. 25:394. ‘London Mint’, p. 121. For an alternative interpretation see above (ch. 1), p. 26 n. 22. Edgar was king of the Mercians and Northumbrians (957–59) before becoming king of the English in 959.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform to have completed’.89 Alternatively, Blunt, Stewart and Lyon suggest that the coins may have been designed simply to symbolise their actual mints, although this fails to explain the acknowledged antiquarianism of the design.90 In general, Edgar’s pre-reform coinage is also closer to that of Æthelstan than to that of his father, uncle or brother.91 The Circumscription Cross type was issued in most areas, and the Circumscription Rosette type was minted in north-west Mercia, but the Bust Crowned type, the type first introduced by Æthelstan made up the bulk of the coinage issued in the South, just as it had under Æthelstan.92 It must be noted that, the Circumscription Cross and Bust Crowned types, of which Edgar made substantial use, had been revived late in Eadwig’s reign, although Eadwig’s ‘revival’ of the Bust Crowned type consists of only two known coins.93 Be that as it may, it is in keeping with all other aspects of his rule that Edgar would choose to express both continuity and change with his coinage. To revive the coinage of Æthelstan was logical as he was the only king before Edgar to so publicly proclaim his rule over a reunited England, and again these were iconographic changes that were introduced shortly after his coming to the throne – although they were introduced with a certain degree of inconsistency. They must also be seen as part of a larger revival, perhaps development would be a better word, of some of the innovations of Æthelstan’s reign. As noted above, the requests for psalmody in both the New Minster Charter and the Regularis Concordia have an origin in the charters of Æthelstan A, while the plant-scroll border of the New Minster Charter portrait has parallels with the border of the portrait of Æthelstan in the Corpus 183 manuscript, and with the foliate motifs on the Cuthbert embroideries. As far as numismatics is concerned, Edgar is of course best known for his monetary reform of 973, a reform which was designed to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that ‘there was a new regime, and that practical considerations once more prevailed over tradition and sentiment’.94 The first step in the reform was the creation of a network of mints that would allow for implementation of a policy of regular recoinage. Here too, it is evident that Edgar was looking to the past, and the policy of regular recoinage that had existed in Wessex before the crisis at Athelney.95 The weight and fineness of the coins were restored to those that had been set by Alfred, and die-cutting was centralised, probably at Winchester. The portrait bust was retained, but a diadem replaced the crown, a detail which may also have been revived from the coins of Alfred, or perhaps from those of Edward the Elder. The bust now also faced in the opposite direction, again simultaneously symbolising both the new order and its continuity with the 89 90 91 92

93 94 95

Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Coinage under Eadgar’, p. 161. Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth-Century England, p. 277. See Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth-Century England, ch. 18 for a summary of numismatic development under these kings. Under Edmund and Eadred it was confined to the eastern part of the country. According to Blunt et al., ‘the revival of the BC type in the south may be attributed to Eadwig, although it was only re-established on a material scale under Edgar’ (Coinage in Tenth-Century England, p. 195). Blunt et al., Coinage in Tenth-Century England, chs. 10 and 11, and pp. 272 and 274. Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Coinage under Eadgar’, p. 148. Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Coinage under Eadgar’, p. 156.

103

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England old. The purpose of the reform was to ensure that there would be only one coinage circulating in England, an idea that again had its origin in the laws of Æthelstan, but one which had not been implemented successfully during that king’s reign. Edgar’s Andover Code (II–III Edgar) indicates, however that the reform was likely to have been in the planning stages from very early in Edgar’s reign.96 By 973 the administration had managed to achieve effective control over the location of mints, the iconography of the coins (a new design was introduced with each issue), and the quality of the coins, as well as trade and taxation. In order to exchange old coins for coins of the current type, substantial fees would had to have been paid to moneyers, providing a sort of wealth tax,97 while the moneyers in turn would have had to pay the king for the new dies. It has been estimated that recoinage could total as much as 10–15 per cent of annual royal revenue.98 Edgar’s monetary reform must also be understood in the context of the events of 973, and especially in the context of the second coronation at Bath at Pentecost. Edgar would almost certainly have been inaugurated shortly after his accession in 959, possibly at the traditional coronation site of Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, the royal estate at which both Æthelstan and Eadred are known to have been consecrated.99 The second coronation had unmistakable imperial overtones, and was possibly inspired by the coronation of the Ottonian emperor Otto I in 962,100 though this need not necessarily have been the case. Charlemagne too had undergone a double coronation, and the choice of Bath as a royal residence of the Mercian kings in the late eighth century may possibly have been inspired in part by Charlemagne’s construction of his palace complex at Aachen.101 Both locations were famous amongst other things for their hot springs. More importantly, however, Bath was an old Roman city, and one which retained a definite romanitas in Edgar’s day. It may be significant in this regard that according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Alfred had been gehalgod king by Pope Leo IV in Rome in 853,102 and according to Byrhtferth’s Vita Sancti Oswaldi, Oswald on his return from Rome just prior to Edgar’s 973 coronation, brought the king the blessing of the Pope.103 While it is most unlikely that Alfred actually was consecrated king by 96

97 98 99

100

101

102 103

The Code, probably issued in the early 960s, stipulates that one coinage is to be used throughout the king’s dominion: [8] & ga an mynet ofer ealne þæs cynges anweald (Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 204). M. Blackburn, ‘Coinage’, in Blackwell Encyclopaedia, ed. Lapidge et al., p. 113. K. Jonsson, The New Era: The Reformation of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage, Commentationes de Nummis Saeculorum IX–XI in Suecia repertis, n.s. 1 (Stockholm, 1987), p. 183. There is also evidence to suggest that Edward the Elder, Edmund and Eadwig may have been crowned at Kingston. See S. Keynes, ‘Kingston upon Thames’, in Blackwell Encyclopaedia, ed. Lapidge et al., p. 272; Keynes, Diplomas, p. 271. Æthelwulf’s succession to the throne of Wessex had also been effected during a council held in Kingston in 848 (Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 222). Otto had already been crowned king at Aachen in 936, and king of Italy in 951. On the imperial nature of Edgar’s coronation see, most importantly, J. L. Nelson, ‘The Second English Ordo’, in her Politics and Ritual, pp. 361–74. On the possible Ottonian influence see Leyser, ‘The Ottonians and Wessex’, pp. 95–8. A suggestion first made by Patrick Wormald, ‘Æthelwold and his Continental Counterparts’, p. 32. See also J. L. Nelson, ‘Aachen as a Place of Power’, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. M. de Jong, F. Theuws and G. van Rhijn (Leiden, 2001), pp. 217–41. Þa was domne Leo papa on Rome & he hine to cyninge gehalgode (MS A, ed. Bately). Benedictionem Apostolicae sedis (Byrhtferth, Vita Oswaldi, p. 436).

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform the pope, it is what was believed to have happened in Edgar’s day, and perhaps Edgar had something of Anglo-Saxon history as well as continental events in mind when he chose to be crowned in an old Roman city. It was, after all, at just this time that Edgar chose to revive the diadem associated with the coinage of Alfred and Edward the Elder (and the late Roman emperors) on his own coinage. Moreover, the poem recording the coronation contrives to use both a Latinate and an Anglo-Saxon name for the city, highlighting its dual heritage and significance as a mediator between past and present, Rome and England. The poem that forms the entry for 973 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle captures all the grandeur of the occasion, although it does not, unfortunately, record the details of the ritual. Her Eadgar wæs, Engla waldend, corðre micelre to cyninge gehalgod on ðære ealdan byrig, Acemannesceastre; eac hi igbuend oðre worde beornas Baðan nemnaþ. Þær was blis micel on þam eadgan dæge eallum geworden, þon(n)e niða bearn nemnað & cigað Pentecostenes dæg. Þær wæs preosta heap, micel muneca ðreat, mine gefrege, gleawra gegaderod. & ða agangen wæs tyn hund wintra geteled rimes fram gebyrdtide bremes cyninges, leohta hyrdes, buton ðær to lafe þa (a)g<e>n wæs wintergeteles, þæs ðe gewritu secgað, seofon & twentig; swa neah wæs sigora frean ðusend aurnen ða þa ðis gelamp. & him Eadmundes eafora hæfde nigon & .xx., niðweorca heard, wintra on worulde, <þa> þis geworden wæs, & þa on ðam .xxx. wæs ðeoden gehalgod.104

Much has been made of the amount of detail into which this poem goes with regard to dates and ages.105 It has been taken as evidence that Edgar delayed his coronation so that he could be anointed, like Christ, who was baptised in ‘about his thirtieth year’ (Luke 3:23), and at Pentecost, a traditional time for baptism.106 This seems, however, to be making too much of the evidence.107 Pentecost was 104

MS A, ed. Bately: ‘In this year Edgar, ruler of the English, was consecrated king with great pomp in the ancient city of Acemannesceastre; men dwelling on the island also name it Bath as another name. There was great joy experienced by all on that happy day that the sons of strife name and call Pentecost. There was a crowd of priests and a throng of monks, a wise gathering, as I have heard. And then ten hundred winters, counted by numbers, had passed from the birthday of the glorious king, the shepherd of lights, except there was yet a remainder of twenty-seven winter-counts, as writings tell us; so near was one thousand [years] of the lord of victories run when this took place. And Edmund’s heir had nine and twenty winters in the world, hard of battles, when this took place, and then in the thirtieth he was hallowed king.’ 105 See, for example, E. John, Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, 1966), pp. 276–89. 106 See, for example, Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 235; Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 212–13; Gretsch, Benedictine Reform, p. 306; John, Orbis Britanniae, p. 288. 107 It should also be noted that the D text of the Chronicle (see also E and F) records only that Edgar was gehalgod to cyninge on pentecostenes mæssedæg on .v. idus Mai, þy .xiii. geare þe he on rice feng æt Hatabaþum, & he wæs þa ane wana .xxx. winter (‘consecrated king on the feast day of Pentecost, on the

105

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England one of the feasts traditionally favoured by Anglo-Saxon kings for the making of law,108 and Edgar was clearly establishing a new order. Edgar did also issue a new law code, the Wihtbordesstan (IV Edgar) code sometime after 970, although there is no evidence as to exactly when between 970 and 973 it may have been issued.109 Pentecost, as we have seen, was also a time that had figured significantly in Alfred’s programme of translation,110 quite possibly because it was the time at which the apostles were given the gift of tongues and their mission to spread Christ’s law throughout the world. In 973 Edgar was claiming power, if not imperial-style rule, over all the various peoples dwelling within his lands. The claim was ritualised in the story of the six or eight Scottish and Welsh and (according to later sources) Scandinavian kings, none of whose native language would have been Old English, ‘submitting’ to Edgar at Chester discussed at greater length below. One might add that Pentecost was also the time at which Edward the Elder had been consecrated king.111 There is, in other words, every indication that Pentecost was a feast traditionally associated with royal ceremonial, and any parallels it may have evoked between the earthly king and Christ would not have been new with Edgar. Be that as it may, it would have been perfectly in keeping with the nature of Æthelwold to have grasped the potential symbolism of the occasion and to have made much of what was, with hindsight, an appropriate parallel between the ages of Edgar and of Christ,112 particularly given the iconography and likely play between angels and Angles in the New Minster Charter. If the king is here anointed like Christ at the time when liturgically humanity was united with Christ, then the association of Christ as ruler of the angels with Edgar, Engla wealdend, would have been a natural one. Much has also been made of the references in the Chronicle poem to the coronation having taken place twenty-seven winters short of the 1000th anniversary of the birth of Christ, and to Edgar having been in his thirtieth year at the time of the ceremony, but these do not in and of themselves allow us to draw any new or remarkable parallels between Edgar and Christ. The fact that Edgar was thirty is likely to have been completely coincidental, and there was certainly no way that anyone involved in the planning of the event could have been confident of Edgar’s living to see his thirtieth year. The coronation is far more likely to have been intended first and foremost as a divinely sanctioned display of power as the culmination of a period in which the king had achieved monastic reform,

108 109 110 111 112

fifth ides of May, in the thirteenth year since he had ascended to the throne, at Bath, and was then one year short of thirty’). See MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin, vol. 6 of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge, 1996). See above, p. 40. On the date of the code, see Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 442. See above, p. 39. A. Campbell, ed., The Chronicle of Æthelweard (London, 1962), p. 51. Deshman connects the iconography of the Baptism of Christ miniature in the Benedictional of Æthelwold, in which Christ receives sceptres and diadems at the moment of his anointing, specifically with the coronation of Edgar; in fact it is a significant part of his argument for dating the manuscript to c. 973 (see above, n. 106). There is no reason, however, that the manuscript could not have been produced after 973, in commemoration of the event rather than in preparation for it.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform monetary reform, and issued a new, and very severe, code of law. What better way to drive home his message than with an imperial-style second coronation?113 Such an interpretation of events would also accord with the probability that the Ottonian influenced west-work constructed at the Old Minster, Winchester, between 974 and 980 had been planned by Edgar as part of his statement of imperial power. Returning to the issue of chronology, it should be observed that the recording of ages, dates and years is the means by which the Chronicle progresses, and the 973 poem as a whole is as self-consciously a part of the text in which it is located as was the Battle of Brunanburh – perhaps even more so.114 The lines & ða agangen, wæs tyn hund wintra . . . from gebyrdtide bremes cyninges, relate the poem back to the first line of the chronicle and the list of Anglo-Saxon kings with which it opens: ÞY GEARE ÞE WÆS AGEN FRAM CRISTES ACENnesse.115 The reference is reinforced by the poet’s statement that the date of Edgar’s coronation is established by writings (þæs þe gewritu secgað). The allusion back to the opening of the Chronicle would have been particularly appropriate within the romanitas of Edgar’s coronation since the first entry following the king list, as we have seen, is a record of the Roman invasion of Britain in 60 B.C. AER Cristes geflæscnesse .lx. wintra. The genealogical reference is picked up in the last line of the poem, which identifies Edgar as Eadmundes eafora (‘Edmund’s heir’). The phrase also echoes the identification of Æthelstan as afaran Eadweardes (‘Edward’s heir’, line 7) and Eadweardes afaran (line 52) in Brunanburh, as well as the identification of Eadmund as afera Eadweards (line 13) in the poem known as the The Conquest of the Five Boroughs that forms the entry for 942. Together with the poem on Edgar’s death (975) these entries constitute a discrete group within the A, B and C texts of the Chronicle, linked together and differentiated from the rest of recorded history by their poetic structure. Edgar will forever be associated with Edmund and Æthelstan, the claim to rule over all those living in the British Isles symbolised by his second coronation, completing the unification of peoples that was the goal of their respective battles. Verbal echoes also help to establish specific connections between the poems and other key events recorded in the Chronicle: the poem on Edgar’s coronation contains echoes of those on Edmund and Æthelstan, the opening of the Chronicle and the coming of the Romans; Brunanburh recalls the arrival of the Angles and Saxons in Britain; the record of Æthelstan’s death that follows Brunanburh links his death with that of Alfred.116 In fact, ‘a concern with English nationalism, an explicit focus on the royal succession in the West Saxon line, and a tendency to make historical comparisons, writing about relatively current happenings in comparison to more 113

In Byrhtferth’s Vita Sancti Oswaldi (pp. 435–8), Edgar’s alliance with Otto II, Oswald’s trip to Rome, and Edgar’s coronation are described in three consecutive paragraphs, an arrangement that implies an imperial rather than christological motivation for the ceremony. 114 For Brunanburh, see above, pp. 71–2. On the self-referentiality of the Chronicle poems as a group, see Thormann, ‘Chronicle Poems’; T. A. Bredehoft, Textual Histories: Readings in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Toronto, 2001), esp. pp. 92–104. 115 See above, p. 16. 116 See above, pp. 171–2.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England remote events’, are characteristics shared by Brunanburh and the Chronicle poems of the 970s.117 The romanitas of the coronation was continued in the ceremony immediately following the consecration in which Edgar led his naval force to Chester and received the ‘submission’ of a number of Welsh and Scottish kings. Chester, like Bath, was an old Roman city, a former legionary fortress. It had been refortified by Æthelflæd and Æthelred in 907 as part of their defensive network of burhs, and had become an important trading centre with a mixed English, Welsh and Scandinavian population.118 Verifiable details of exactly what took place at Chester are hard to come by, despite the variety of sources that record the event.119 According to the D text of the Chronicle (see also E and F): se cyning gelædde ealle his scipfyrde to Leiceastre, & þær him comon ongean .vi. cyningas, & ealle wið hine getreowsodon þæt hi woldon efenwyrhtan beon on sæ & on lande.120

In his Life of St Swithun, Ælfric puts the number at eight, identifies the kings as Cumbrians (Cumera) and ‘Scotts’ (Scotta), and says that they gebugon to Eadgares wisunge (‘submitted to Edgar’s rule’), rather than became his allies.121 In the post-Conquest Chronicon ex chronicis by John of Worcester, and in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum, the kings are named as Kenneth king of the Scots, Malcolm king of the Cumbrians, Maccus king of many islands, and Dufnal, Giferth, Huul, Iacob and Iudathil (or Iuchil), the latter five identified as kings of the Welsh by William of Malmesbury.122 They also add details of the ceremonial rowing on the Dee: Regem Scottorum Kinadium, Cumbrorum Malcolmum, archipiratam Mascusium omnesque reges Walensium, quorum nomina fuere Dufnal Giferth Huul Iacob Iudethil, ad curiam coactos uno et perpetuo sacramento sibi obligauit, adeo ut apud Ciuitatem Legionum sibi occurrentes in pompam triumphi per fluuium De illos deduceret. Vna enim naui impositos ipse ad proram sedens remigare cogebat, per hoc ostentans regalem magnificentiam, qui subiectam haberat tot regum potentiam.123

Although the post-Conquest texts greatly embellish the event, it is clear that in 973 Edgar appeared in Chester as leader of his fleet, and that he received a pledge 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

Bredehoft, Textual Histories, p. 100. See S. Ward, ‘Edward the Elder and the Re-establishment of Chester’, in Edward the Elder, ed. Higham and Hill, pp. 160–6. D. E. Thornton, ‘Edgar and the Eight Kings, A.D. 973: textus et dramatis personae’, Early Medieval Europe 10.1 (2001), 49–79. MS D, ed. Cubbin (s.a. 972): ‘The king led all his fleet to Chester, and six kings came to him there, and all pledged with him that they would be his allies on sea and on land.’ W. W. Skeat, ed., Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 2 vols., EETS o.s. 94 and 114 (Oxford, 1890 and 1900; repr. as one vol. Oxford, 1996), II, 440–71, at 468. Thornton, ‘Edgar and the Eight Kings’, nn. 31 and 32. See ibid., 64–74 on the identities of the kings listed. ‘Kenneth, king of the Scots, Malcolm king of the Cumbrians, Mascusius the pirate king, and all the Welsh kings (whose names were Dyfnwal, Gifreth, Hywel, Iago, and Iudethil) he compelled to attend his court, and bound them to him by one perpetual oath, so much so that, when they all met him at the City of Legions, he took them for a triumphal procession on the river Dee. For he set them in a boat, and made them row while he sat at the prow, as a way of displaying the majesty of a king who held the power of so many kings in subjection’ (Gesta Regum, ed. Mynors et al., pp. 238–41).

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform of support if not allegiance from a number of other rulers, probably including kings of the Welsh and Scots. The Roman past and Roman precedent are also underscored by the reference to the ceremony taking place in ciuitatem Legionum (‘the city of Legions’). Julia Barrow points out that Edgar may have based his ceremony on a Roman precedent, also adopted by the Carolingians, of conducting peace-meetings on rivers forming borders, especially in boats.124 In light of this she prefers to interpret the meeting at Chester as a meeting of equals gathered to negotiate a treaty rather than as a ceremony cementing Edgar’s overlordship. To consider Edgar’s support of the monasteries and the peaceful meeting, or submission, of the kings at Chester as evidence for the peaceful nature of the king, is to consider the evidence as offering only one possible interpretation. Whatever actually took place between the kings who met in 973, the D text of the Chronicle, the record chronologically closest to the date at which the events actually occurred, states clearly that Edgar led his fleet to Chester. It would be difficult to interpret this as anything other than a display of his naval capabilities, perhaps a show of force designed to cow into submission anyone who might think of breaking the peace. It was also not long before his coronation that he had ordered Thanet to be ravaged,125 resulting according to Roger of Wendover in at least some loss of life.126 In addition it was sometime c. 973 that Edgar issued his Wihtbordesstan Code (IV Edgar), a code of unprecedented imperial pretensions. As it survives the code was intended specifically for the Danelaw; however its secular section contains the well-known clause þes ræd gemæne eallum leodscipe, ægðer ge Anglum ge Denum ge Bryttum, on ælcum ende mines anwealdes.127 It was dynastic to a degree that no earlier code had been, claiming for Edgar the rights swa min fæder hæfde (‘that my father had’) and warning that his officials were to have the same respect in his day swa hy hæfdon on mines fæder (‘that they had in that of my father’).128 The English were also commanded specifically to obey the laws that Edgar had added to those of his ancestors.129 Edgar’s earlier Andover code (II–III Edgar) had maintained a certain distinction in voice between its ecclesiastical and secular sections. The ecclesiastical section is written entirely in the third person and begins with a prologue stating: Ðis is seo gerædnys, þe Eadgar cyng mid his witena geðeahte gerædde, Gode to lofe & him sylfum to cynescipe and eallum his leodscipe to þearfe.130 The secular ordinance, however, begins Ðis is þonne seo woruldcunde gerædnes, þe ic wille 124 125 126

127 128 129 130

J. Barrow, ‘Chester’s Earliest Regatta? Edgar’s Dee-rowing Episode’, Early Medieval Europe 10.1 (2001), 81–93. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 969: Her on þissum geare Eadgar cyning het oferhergian eall Tenetland (MS D, ed. Cubbin). EHD, no. 4: ‘About the same time merchants coming from York landed in the isle of Thanet, and were at once taken prisoner by the islanders and robbed of all their goods; whence King Edgar, moved by anger, was so furious with these pillagers that he despoiled all of them of their possessions and even deprived some of life.’ Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 210: [2.2] ‘This decree is to be common to all the nation, the English as well as the Danes and the Britons, in every region of my kingdom.’ Both phrases are in clause 2a (Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 208). Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 210: [2.1a] Stande þonne mid Anglum þæt ic & mine witan to minra yldrena domum gehyton, eallum leodscipe to þearfe. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 194: ‘This is the decree which King Edgar decided with

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England þæt man ealde.131 And again in the very next clause Edgar decrees that ic wille ðæt ælc man sy folcrihtes wyrðe.132 Admittedly, the prologue is meant to preface the whole of the law code and not just the ecclesiastical section, but the use of different voices has the effect of making ecclesiastical law the product of council, consensus and a higher authority; it is produced for the love of God and derived from his own eternal law. Secular law, on the other hand, becomes the personal will of the king. This distinction vanishes in the Wihtbordesstan Code of the early 970s. The prologue is again written in the third person and establishes that the code was agreed upon by the king and his councillors, but several of the clauses in the ecclesiastical section are now voiced in the first person: [1.4] beode ic & se ærcebisceop (‘I and the archbishop command’); [1.5] beode ic minum gerefan (‘I command my reeves’); [1.6] Ðonne wille ic, þæt þas Godes gerihta standan æghwær gelice on minum anwealde (‘Moreover, it is my will that these dues of God be alike everywhere in my kingdom’); [1.8] & ic and mine þegnas wyldan ure preostes (‘And I and my thanes command that our priests’).133 The first person voice of the king in the secular section of the code is much as it was in the Andover Code, although more frequent.134 The opening clause of the secular section is particularly interesting: + Woruldgerihta ic wille þæt standen an ælcum leodscipe swa gode swa hy mon betste aredian mæge, Gode to gecwemnysse & me to fullum cynescipe & earmum & eadegum to ðearfe & to friðe.135

This clause, with its invocation of God, king and people, echoes the prologue to the Andover Code and establishes the parallel nature of God and king in maintaining the peace and security of the people, as well as in exacting justice. The ecclesiastical section, on the other hand, with its combination of dues owed to God and dues owed to earthly landlords presents a slightly more human God than was found in the Andover Code, one who, in the words of Patrick Wormald, ‘can be expected to act much like any other landlord confronted with tenants withholding their rent’.136 The will of God and the will of the king come together in this code far more explicitly than they had in any previous legislation. Certainly its tone is in keeping with the sacerdotal and imperial statements made as part of the 973 coronation, but one must be cautious as to just how much of the voice of the law code can be attributed to the king himself. The homiletic tone of the Wihtbordesstan Code suggests that it may well have been written by an ecclesiastic.137

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his councillors, for the love of God and for the royal majesty of himself and for the benefit of all his people.’ Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 200: [1] ‘This is the secular ordinance which I will that every man observe.’ Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 200: [1.1] ‘I will that each man be entitled to the benefit of common law.’ Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, pp. 206 and 208. See §§2.1, 3, 12, 13, 14, 14.1, 16. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 208: ‘It is my will that secular rights be maintained in every region as well as they may best be arranged, for the satisfaction of God and for my full royal majesty and for the benefit and peace of the poor and the rich.’ Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 318. EHD, p. 398; Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 319.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform Patrick Wormald has also noted that the sternness of the tone of the Wihtbordesstan Code is at odds with its silence as to actual punishments.138 It is possible, however, that there was a lost equivalent for this code scheduled for ‘English England’ which would have detailed punishments and penalties.139 This may be the law code referred to by Lantred of Winchester in his Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni written in the 970s: At the command of the glorious king Edgar, a law (lex) . . . was promulgated throughout England, to serve as a deterrent against all sorts of crime . . . that if any thief or robber were found anywhere in the patria, he would be tortured at length (excruciaretur diutius) by having his eyes put out, his hands cut off, his ears torn off, his nostrils carved open and his feet removed; and finally, with the skin and hair of his head shaved off he would be abandoned in the open fields dead in respect of nearly all his limbs, to be devoured by wild beasts and birds and hounds of the night.140

In conclusion, if Edgar’s reign is renowned for its ‘peace’, one must question at what price that peace was achieved. The display at Chester, the ravaging of Thanet, the Wihtbordesstan Code, Lantfred’s text, and Edgar’s very ability to see so many sweeping reforms through to completion, together paint a portrait of a king who maintained his control of the kingdom and its ‘peace’ with the threat of harsh punishment and military force.

ROYAL WOMEN IN THE REIGN OF EDGAR

According to Byrhtferth of Ramsey’s Vita Sancti Oswaldi, written 997–1002, Ælfthryth, Edgar’s second wife, was anointed and crowned as queen in 973 alongside her husband.141 Doubt has been cast on the reliability of Byrhtferth’s story, both because the description of the part played by the queen in the proceedings has been deemed more appropriate for the celebration of a royal marriage, and because there is evidence in the form of Byrhtferth’s account of the Battle of Maldon that his version of events was not always entirely accurate.142 Byrhtferth describes the actions of the queen at the feast after the coronation as follows: Regina vero cum abbatibus et abbatissis convivium habuit, quae vestita carbasea veste erat, circumamicta varietate lapillorum et margaritarum, suffulta elatius caeteris matronis, quam compsit regalis dignitas quoniam post mortem pretiosi ducis, thalamum regis promeruit introire. Peractis egregiis nuptiis regalis thori, reversi sunt omnes in locum suum benedicentes regem pariter et reginam, pacis eis tranquillitatem desiderantes quam antiqui promeruerunt reges.143

138 139 140 141 142

Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 318. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 125–7, 369–70 and 442. Quoted in Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 125. See Byrhtferth, Vita Sancti Oswaldi, pp. 436–8 for an account of the full ceremony. M. Lapidge, ‘Byrhtferth and Oswald’, in St Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence, ed. N. Brooks and C. Cubitt (Leicester and New York, 1996), pp. 64–83, at 72–3. 143 Byrhtferth, Vita Sancti Oswaldi, p. 438; trans. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 401: ‘The queen entertained the abbots and abbesses at a feast. Clad in a robe of fine linen, embroidered with precious stones and pearls, she was raised high above the other matrons, as befitted her royal dignity because after the

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England It is the final sentence that is confusing, seemingly referring to a wedding rather than a coronation.144 Janet Nelson, however, believes that the rubric introducing the queen’s ordo in the second English ordo (the text that would have been used in 973), indicates that Byrhtferth’s nuptial imagery is metaphorical. She concludes that his account of the events of 973 is substantially accurate.145 The rubric for the queen’s ordo as it survives in tenth-century manuscripts states: Finit consecratio regis. quam sequitur consecratio reginae. que propter honorificentiam ab episcopo sacri unguinis oleo super uerticem perfundenda est. et in aecclesia coram optimatibus cum condigno honore et regia celsitudine in regalis thori consortium benedicenda et consecranda est. quae etiam anulo pro integritate fidei. Et corona pro aeternitatis Gloria decoranda est.146

As Nelson points out, the language of the rubric, with its reference to ‘the following page’ and to a ‘decree’ is out of place in a liturgical book, but seems ‘to echo a decision of the witan relating to the consecration, perhaps controversial, of a particular queen’.147 The likeliest candidate would indeed seem to be Ælfthryth. Unfortunately, the case is not iron-clad. Byrhtferth does not describe the queen’s part in the actual coronation, only her part in the banquet that followed, and there is evidence that the second English Ordo originated in the late ninth or early tenth century, despite the fact that it is preserved only in manuscripts post-dating the reign of Edgar.148 It is going too far therefore to claim, as many have done, that Ælfthryth was definitely consecrated queen in 973.149 Be that as it may, Ælfthryth’s position as legitimate wife and queen was emphasised throughout Edgar’s reign,150 and the art historical evidence of the 960s and 970s may also be interpreted as pointing towards the creation of a more exalted image of queenship. Throughout her career Ælfthryth was at odds with Dunstan, and the archbishop famously supported the cause of her stepson Edward the Martyr (k. 975–978) over that of her own son Æthelred II (k. 978–1016) at Edgar’s death in 975. On the other hand, both she and Æthelred II enjoyed the enthusiastic support of

144 145 146

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death of the great ealdorman, she had been deemed worthy to enter the royal [bed]chamber. When the splendid nuptials of the royal wedding came to an end, the whole company returned to their own place, blessing the king and the queen likewise and wishing them the tranquillity of peace, such as kings of old had merited.’ Richardson and Sayles, Governance of Mediaeval England, pp. 401–2. Nelson, ‘Second English Ordo’, pp. 372–3. J. Wickham Legg, ed., Three Coronation Orders, HBS vol. 19 (London, 1900), p. 61; trans. J. L. Nelson, ‘The Second English Ordo’, in her Politics and Ritual, pp. 372–3: ‘The king’s coronation ends. The queen’s consecration follows. To do her honour, she is anointed on the crown of her head by the bishop with the oil of sacred unction. And let her be blessed and consecrated in church in the presence of the magnates, to consortship of the royal bed, as it is shown on the following page. We further decree that she be adorned with a ring for the integrity of the faith, and a crown for the glory of eternity.’ See also E. John, Orbis Britanniae, pp. 276–89. John, however, accepts the idea that the 973 coronation was a long-delayed first crowning. Nelson, ‘Second English Ordo’, p. 372. See Nelson, ‘Inauguration Rituals’, in her Politics and Ritual, p. 299; P. L. Ward, ‘The Coronation Ceremony in Medieval England’, Speculum 14 (1939), 160–78. See, for example, Nelson ‘Second English Ordo’, n. 55; P. Stafford, ‘The King’s Wife in Wessex, 800–1066’, Past & Present 91 (1981), 3–27, at 17; P. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997), p. 61. Ælfthryth witnesses charters in 966 as regis coniux (‘king’s wife’, S 739) and legitima prefati regis coniuncx (‘legitimate wife of the aforementioned king’, S 745); Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 60.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform Æthelwold, whose influence with the king seems to have been far more profound than that of Dunstan – at least it was more public. The Regularis Concordia established the queen as patron and protector of all women’s religious houses throughout England in a role parallel to that of the king as protector and patron of the men’s houses.151 The account of ‘Edgar’s Establishment of the Monasteries’ granted the queen a more humble status and placed greater stress on the king’s role in founding houses for women, stating simply that An sumum stowun eacswilce he mynecæna gestaþolode and þa Æ[l]fþryþe his gebeddan bet”hte, þæt heo æt ælcere neode hyra gehulpe.152 Despite the slight differences in tone, the queen’s power and authority in each case clearly resided in her status as king’s wife and were derived from and dependent on her husband. However, it is clear that Ælfthryth also gained power and influence through her patronage of both the monastic reform and her favourite monasteries;153 so much so, in fact, that the church was prepared to turn what amounted to a blind eye to her possible involvement in the murder of Edward the Martyr in 978.154 Her actual role, if any, in the crime is debatable, but according to William of Malmesbury, Ælfthryth founded Wherwell and Amesbury as penance for her part in the murder.155 By making the queen the patron and protector of England’s nuns, the Regularis Concordia recreated her in the image of Mary, just as it modelled its portrayal of the king on the image of Christ. However, while there had been a christological dimension to both Alfred and Æthelstan’s kingship, the promotion of a Marian model for the queen was something new. It can hardly be coincidental that the earliest known depiction of the coronation of the Virgin in western manuscript illumination is to be found on folio 102v of Æthelwold’s Benedictional.156 The iconography of the miniature echoes the mixture of bridal and coronation imagery in both the rubric for the ordo and in Byrhtferth’s account of the coronation festivities: ‘The virgin in bed on earth receives an eternal crown that rewards 151

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154 155 156

Coniugique suae Ælfthrithae sanctimonialium mandras ut impauidi more custodis defenderet cautissime praecepit; ut uidelicet mas maribus, femina feminis, sine ullo suspicionis scrupulo subueniret (‘And he saw to it wisely that his Queen, Ælfthrith, should be the protectress and fearless guardian of the communities of nuns; so that he himself helping the men and his consort helping the women there should be no cause for any breath of scandal’ [Regularis Concordia, ed. Symons, p. 2]). Cf. p. 7: regis tantummodo ac reginae dominium ad sacri loci munimen et ad ecclesiasticae possessionis augmentum uoto semper efflagitare optabili prudentissime iusserunt. Ad regis uero obsequium et reginae patres monasteriorum matresque, quotiens expedierit ad sacri coenobii cui praesunt utilitatem, cum Dei timore et regulae obseruantia humiliter accedant (‘On the other hand, they commanded that the sovereign power of the king and Queen – and that only – should ever be besought with confident petition, both for the safeguarding of holy places and for the increase of the goods of the Church. As often therefore as it shall be to their advantage the fathers and mothers of each house shall have humble access to the King and Queen in the fear of God and observance of the Rule’). Councils & Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., p. 150: ‘In some places he established nuns, and entrusted them to Ælfthryth his wife, so that she might help them in each of their needs.’ She is credited, for example, with founding Wherwell and Amesbury, and was also a great patron of Barking. See M. Meyer, ‘Women and the Tenth-Century English Monastic Reform’, 55–61; Foot, Veiled Women, II, 21–5, 27–33, 215–19. Edward was murdered by the queen’s followers on her own estate at Corfe while on a visit to his step-mother and step-brother. De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series 52 (London, 1874). See also Foot, Veiled Women, I, 4, II, 21–5 and 215–19. Deshman, ‘Cristus Rex’, pp. 397–8; Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 126–7.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England her for her virtuous life, but also signifies her perpetual marital co-rule with her spouse.’157 It is rather less likely that the prominence of St Æthelthryth in the Benedictional was an allusion to Ælfthryth, even in her supposed role as patron of Ely.158 Æthelthryth’s fame rested on the fact that she was a virgin queen and abbess who had rejected her husband for the church, and as such she would hardly have been a fitting model for a woman whose primary royal duty was the production of sons and heirs, and whose position at court was assured in large part by her having fulfilled this duty.159 The seal of Edith of Wilton (fig. 16), Edgar’s illegitimate daughter, on the other hand, is very similar to the image of Æthelthryth on folio 90v, and to the figures of the virgins that make up the choir of the virgins on folios 1v–2 of the Benedictional. The veiled Edith stands with a book in one hand and the other hand raised before her, in a pose very like that of Æthelthryth as she appears in the choir of the virgins (fol. 2). The acanthus decoration of the handle of the matrix was integral to the design of the seal in that it was intended to leave an impression in the wax. Its parallels with the lush acanthus borders of the Benedictional are obvious, and as the seal is generally dated 975–984,160 the two are roughly contemporary. It should also be compared, however, with the acanthus ornament on the back of the Alfred Jewel (fig. 2), which may also have had some of the functions of a seal.161 Edith’s seal is the only surviving Anglo-Saxon seal to display such decoration and lends some support to the idea that acanthus vine-scroll may have carried specifically royal associations in Anglo-Saxon England. The inscription identifies Edith as regalis adelpha (‘royal sister’), which can be interpreted as referring both to her status as a nun and to the fact that she was the half-sister of both Edward and Æthelred. By either reading she was clearly emphasising the fact that she was royally born. Certainly she used her royal status to increase the wealth and importance of Wilton and her own position within the church.162 A similar emphasis on royal status might also lie behind William of Malmesbury’s story of Æthelwold rebuking the saint for her luxurious golden garments, which seem to have been not unlike the gold-bordered cloak worn by Edgar in the New Minster Charter frontispiece, or the jewel encrusted borders of the queen’s gown in Byrhtferth’s account of the coronation banquet, or perhaps the lavish robes worn by Æthelthryth in the Benedictional. According to William: 157 158

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160 161 162

Deshman, Benedictional, p. 205. Pace Deshman, Benedictional, p. 207. Ælfthryth is known to have granted land to Ely, but she could hardly be described as one of its major patrons (see Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, pp. 105, 111, 116). See also C. Hart, ‘Two Queens of England’, The Ampleforth Journal 82 (1977), 10–16. Hart’s claims that Ælfthryth (and Edgar’s mother, Eadgifu, before her) were special patrons of Ely are based more on belief than on hard evidence (see pp. 13–15). Pauline Stafford has pointed out that Æthelthryth’s appearances in the witness lists of Edgar’s charters are tied to the dates at which her sons were born. See Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 201; cf. S 739, S 745, S 767, and S 806. On the seal in general see Heslop, ‘English Seals’, p. 4. See above, p. 33. See ‘La Légende de Ste Edith en prose et vers par le moine Goscelin’, ed. A. Wilmart, Analecta Bollandiana 56 (1938), pp. 46 and 62–5; S. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 140–54.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform Vnum a maioribus accepi quo non mediocriter iuditium offendebat hominum, fallens uidelicet oculos eorum auratarum apparatu uestium; siquidem cultioribus indumentis iugiter ornata procederet quam illius professionis sanctitudo exposceret. Vnde a sancto Athelwoldo palam increpita.163

Edith’s reply, that only God could judge the hearts of men, and that a pure heart could lie beneath her own robes as easily as it could beneath Æthelwold’s ‘ragged sheepskin’, silenced the bishop.164 In an episode equally revealing of the purity of her heart, Goscelin of Canterbury, writing c. 1080, tells how Edith had a cruciform wooden chapel (porticu in cruces) dedicated to St Denis built, and commissioned her chaplain, Benno of Trier, to decorate it with a series of wall paintings depicting the passion of Christ as she had pictured it in her own heart.165 Although the hand that executes the paintings is Benno’s rather than Edith’s own, her role in their creation is comparable to Edgar’s role in the creation of the Regularis Concordia or the New Minster Charter. As both patron and source for the subject if not the design of the paintings, Edith becomes the first member of the West Saxon royal family known to be the creator of a monumental work of art.166 The fact that the chapel is cruciform is also worthy of note. It is clear that churches built on a cruciform plan became popular during the reform era,167 but it is unclear exactly when they first appeared in England. Æthelwold’s church at Thorney, built c. 973–75, is likely to have been cruciform in plan, and so too might have been the stone hermitage built for his use at the same site.168 According to Byrhtferth, Oswald too built a church at Ramsey c. 969–91:

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167

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‘In one thing, so I have heard from my elders, she used to give no small offence to public opinion (deceiving it, no doubt, by appearances), the splendour of her gold-embroidered garments; for she always went about in more elegant clothes than were called for by the sanctity of her profession. For this she was openly rebuked by St Æthelwold’ (Gesta Regum, ed. Mynors et al., pp. 402–3). Verax et irrefragabile iuditium Dei, sola mortalium operitur conscientia; nam et in sordibus luctuosis potest esse iactantia. Quapropter puto quod tam incorrupta mens potest esse sub istis uestibus quam sub tuis discissis pellibus (Gesta Regum, ed. Mynors et al., p. 402). ‘Ste Edith’, ed. Wilmart, p. 87: omnicolore pictura per manum artificiosi Benne decorauit (1), passionis dominice monumenta (2), ut in corde depinxerat (3), imaginata exposuit. See also B. Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival, CSASE 1 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 15–16. On the term porticus see É. Ó Carragáin, ‘The Term Porticus and Imitatio Romae in Early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Text and Gloss: Studies in Insular Learning and Literature Presented to Joseph Donovan Pheifer, ed. H. Conrad O’Briain, A. M. D’Arcy and J. Scattergood (Dublin, 1999), pp. 13–34; E. Dudley, C. Jackson and E. G. M. Fletcher, ‘Porch and Porticus in Saxon Churches’, Jnl of the British Archaeological Association 19 (1956), 1–13; H. M. Taylor, ‘The Architectural Interest of Æthelwulf’s De Abbatibus’, ASE 3 (1974), 163–73. Queens were of course credited with commissioning or executing smaller scale works, especially embroideries. Ælfflæd, for example, most probably commissioned the Cuthbert embroideries (see above, p. 75) for Bishop Frithestan of Winchester, and Emma is said to have donated a pall and several embroidered altar cloths to Ely (see below, p. 129). R. Gem, ‘Tenth-Century Architecture in England’, in Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo XXXVIII, Il Secolo di Ferro: Mito e Realtà del Secolo X, 2 vols. (Spoleto, 1991), II, 822–36, at 822–3 and 826–9. It was described c. 1100 as lapideam ecclesiolam in modum piramidis, delicatissimis cameratam cancellulis, et duplici area tribus dedicatam altaribus permodicis (‘a small church of stone, in the manner of a tower, constructed with most delicate little cancellulae and with two stories dedicated with three very small altars’). Quoted and translated in Gem, ‘Tenth-Century Architecture’, pp. 826–7.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England in modum crucis; porticum in oriente, in meridie, et in aquilone; turrim in medio, quo sustentaretur a porticibus iuxta se fatantium amplificato; dehinc ecclesiam in occidente turrim annexuit.169

Although Edith’s porticus was a cruciform chapel added to a church, rather than a church proper, it was almost certainly inspired by these new structures built by the reformers. It is worth considering, however, that the chapel was apparently a small, devotional space and could also have been influenced by similar structures on the continent.170 Further, we should not rule out some inspiration for the plan deriving from the legend of St Helena, which attributed the finding of the true cross to the fourth-century empress. Cynewulf’s poem Elene provides evidence that the legend was known in England by at least the tenth century,171 but perhaps more pertinently, Trier was a centre of the cult of Helena, claiming to have been her birthplace, and to possess her relics.172 Edgar had brought Benno to England from Trier as one of Edith’s teachers when she was young, and it is reasonable to assume that he would have taught his royal female pupil about the royal female saint.173 Given the devotional subject matter of the wall-paintings, it is not impossible that Edith’s chapel may have been inspired, at least in part by the Helena legend.

CONCLUSION

Wilton enjoyed the patronage of the West Saxon royal family, particularly its women, throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, and remained one of the richest monasteries in England at the time of the Conquest. Due in no small part to the scale of royal patronage at Wilton, Edith went on to become the focus of a major local cult, and a saint of some national importance.174 When Edgar died on 169

170

171

172 173

174

‘In the fashion of a cross: a porticus on the east, on the south and on the north; a tower in the middle, which having been raised up might be supported by the porticus butting against it; then in the west he annexed a tower to the church’ [or ‘he annexed to the tower the church’]. Quoted and translated in Gem, ‘Tenth-Century Architecture’, pp. 822–3; see also Raine, Historians of the Church at York, I, 434. The chapel of St Lawrence built c. 425–50 by the Empress Galla Placidia, abutting the narthex of her church of Sta. Croce, Ravenna, for example, was built in the shape of a cross. So too was the chapel of the Holy Cross in the Lateran Baptistry complex, Rome. On the date of Cynewulf see P. W. Conner, ‘On Dating Cynewulf’, in Cynewulf: Basic Readings, ed. R. E. Bjork (New York, 1996), pp. 23–55; J. M. McCulloh, ‘Did Cynewulf Use a Martyrology? Reconsidering the Sources of the Fates of the Apostles’, ASE 29 (2000), 67–83. The Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Biblioteca capitalare MS cxvii), in which Elene survives, is dated to the middle of the second half of the tenth century. A. Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 44–51. A vita of the saint was written by the monk Altmann at the nearby monastery of Hautvillers c. 830–39 (ibid., pp. 46–7). See J. McNamara, ‘Imitatio Helenae: Sainthood as an Attribute of Queenship’, in Saints: Studies in Hagiography, ed. S. Sticca (Binghamton, 1996), pp. 51–80, on the influence of the Helena legend on the actions and stories of royal women in the medieval period in general. For Galla Placidia’s Imitatio Helenae, see L. Brubaker, ‘Memories of Helena: Patterns of Imperial Female Matronage in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries’, in Men, Women and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium, ed. L. James (London and New York, 1997), pp. 52–75, esp. p. 61. For a summary of the evidence see Goscelin, ‘Ste Edith’; Ridyard, Royal Saints, pp. 140–75; Foot, Veiled Women, II, 221–31.

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Edgar and the royal women of the monastic reform 8 July 975, he was buried at Glastonbury, the burial place of his father, and attempts were made to establish a royal cult around him too, no doubt with a view to eventual canonisation.175 The movement seems never to have had much support outside of Glastonbury, despite the king’s legendary patronage of the English church. His gifts to Glastonbury are said to have included some particularly lavish and unusual objects: an ivory staff decorated with gold, an altar cross of woven gold and silver hung with little bells, his coronation robe (to serve as a covering for the altar), and a shrine of gold and silver decorated with ivory images and containing the relics of St Vincent and the head of St Apollinaris.176 According to William of Malmesbury, forty years after his death Edgar’s incorrupt body was translated into that same shrine by abbot Æthelweard in a ceremony that proved the king’s saintliness. Just like his reign, however, it was not without it’s own version of the king’s harsh justice: Denique creditum est non nullam loco imminuisse uindictam propter Egelwardi audaciam in regem Edgarum commissam. Nam cum bono fortasse mentis proposito (post XL annos obitus sui) effodisset tumulum, inuenit corpus nullius labis conscium, sed solida integritate compactum. Quod cum eum ad reuerenciam debuisset inflectere, ad audaciam leuauit. Nam quia locellus quem parauerat difficilem pro magnitudine corporis minabatur ingressum regales exuuias ferro temerauit, ausus facinus auditu nedum, actu graue. Unde continuo sanguis undatim emicans astancium corda pauore concussit, uultus pallore infecit. Ita regis ossa in scrinio super altare locata sunt cum capite sancti Apolinaris et reliquiis beati Uincencii martiris, que ille magno empta decori domus Dei adiecerat. Temeratorem porro sacri corporis animus reliquia nec multo post ecclesiam egressum fracta ceruice mors inuenit.177

William ends his account of the same event in the Gesta regum anglorum by noting that non infirma inter Anglos fama est nullum nec eius nec superioris aetatis regem in Anglia recto et aequilibri iuditio Edgaro comparandum: ita nichil uita eius sanctius, nichil iustitia probabilius fuit.178

175

One wonders why he was not buried in Æthelwold’s Winchester since the two had worked so closely together in life. It may be simply that he wanted to be buried near his father and in one of the houses associated with the origins of the reform. It could also be that Glastonbury was chosen by his eldest son Edward, who would have organised the burial, because Æthelwold supported the cause of his brother Æthelred. I would like to thank Patrick Wormald for this last suggestion. 176 See Early History of Glastonbury, ed. Scott, pp. 123 and 130. 177 Early History of Glastonbury, ed. Scott, pp. 134–5: ‘Finally it came to be believed that because of Aethelweard’s insolent behaviour towards king Edgar the security of the place was diminished. For when he dug up the latter’s grave 40 years after his death, perhaps with good intentions, he found the body quite unblemished, indeed whole and complete. Although this ought to have inclined him to reverence it only increased his audacity. Because the reliquary that he had prepared threatened to be too small for the size of the body, he profaned the royal remains with iron, perpetrating an outrage serious to hear of, let alone perform. Whereupon blood gushed out in streams, striking fear into the hearts of those standing by and turning his own countenance pale. Thus it is that the king’s bones are to be found in a shrine above the altar, together with the head of St Apollinaris and the relics of the blessed martyr Vincent, the king’s purchase of which had added to the great glory of God’s house. But the desecrator of the holy body went out of his mind and not long afterwards met his death, breaking his neck as he left the church.’ 178 Gesta Regum, ed. Mynors et al., pp. 262–3: ‘there is a strong tradition among the English that neither in his own nor in any earlier age has there been a king in England who could be properly and justly compared to Edgar: nothing was more saintly than his life or more admirable than his justice’.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England William’s account of Edgar’s actions in both life and death is no doubt exaggerated; however the image of Edgar he projects, with its emphasis on generous patronage and stern justice is in keeping with the image of the king created during his own lifetime by both Æthelwold and Edgar himself. It was also the image of kingship that would be taken up at least nominally by Edgar’s son Æthelred II, by his successor Cnut, and by his eventual successor, Edgar’s grandson, Edward the Confessor. In terms of portraiture, the portrait of Edgar in the New Minster Charter would provide one of the models for that of Cnut and Emma in the New Minster Liber Vitae. Portraits of the queen would also figure much more prominently in the art historical record, and the image of the queen as a type of Mary developed for Ælfthryth by Æthelwold, and visualised in the seal of Edith of Wilton would provide their basic model. Queens like Emma and Edith would prove every bit as adept at manipulating their images in an effort to preserve or increase power, as had Ælfthryth and Edith of Wilton; but perhaps most importantly of all, Anglo-Saxon queen’s would now take their place alongside Anglo-Saxon kings as the producers of texts and the ‘authors’ of their own royal portraits.

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4 Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut In 1017 Cnut, king of the English (1016–35), king of Denmark (1019–35), and ruler of parts of Norway and Sweden (1028–35) married Emma/Ælfgifu, the widow of King Æthelred II. The marriage was a blatantly political step which allowed Cnut to gain some control over the fragmented alliances of the English, Scandinavians and Normans, and their various interests in the throne of England. By making Emma/Ælfgifu his queen, Cnut effectively secured her support and defused the potential threat represented by the exiled æthelings Edward and Alfred. Cnut had also taken control of a realm divided by Danish and English ethnic and political identities, and by the shifting and often treacherous allegiances of powerful individuals on both sides; this is no doubt why he worked so hard to establish a realm united by peace, and to establish for himself an English political identity. His choice of Emma/Ælfgifu as his queen placed her in an ambivalent position in terms of both national unification and personal political identity. Emma/Ælfgifu was a foreign born queen whose double name represented her double identity as both Norman (by birth) and English (by marriage). For Cnut in 1017 however – and arguably for William in 1066 – she had come to represent continuity with the English regime, if not Englishness itself. Whatever the reasons for the marriage it seems to have been a success by any standards, and certainly by medieval ones. In public and in private, Cnut and Emma carried out what Simon Keynes has quite accurately described as a ‘brilliantly contrived double act’.1 Yet for all the evidence that they worked very closely together, one of the most remarkable events of their reign was the emergence of the queen as a major figure in her own right in both the art historical and literary record; indeed, within the art historical record the image of Emma/Ælfgifu is far more innovative and has proven far more important in many ways than that of Cnut. Two portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu survive (one with and one without Cnut), more than survive of any other Anglo-Saxon queen. She was not the only, nor even the earliest queen to be depicted in Anglo-Saxon art. As we have seen, Cynethryth, Offa’s queen appeared on coinage in the eighth century, though the ‘portraits’ of her are of a generalised type only;2 and two images of the seventh-century Northumbrian queen Æthelthryth survive in the Benedictional of St Æethelwold, although she is 1 2

S. Keynes, ‘Cnut’, Blackwell Encyclopaedia, ed. Lapidge et al., p. 109. See above, p. 51. As noted previously, the Cynethryth coinage is exceptional, the use of the queen’s name being unparalleled in the rest of Anglo-Saxon coinage. It is likely that the coins were influenced by the imperial coinage of Byzantium. Here, as there, the portrait is of a single conventional type (crowned queen), and is merely repeated from coin to coin. See I. Stewart, ‘The London Mint and the Coinage of Offa’, in Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. M. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 27–43, at

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England depicted in that manuscript in her role as virgin abbess rather than as queen.3 Unlike the formulaic images of her royal female predecessors, the portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu are both original and controversial. They borrow from the traditional medieval representation of gendered power, but rearrange traditional motifs to create radically new images which transcend what we have come to see as established early medieval gender roles. At the heart of both portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu is the conventional image of the queen as faithful wife and virtuous mother. Equally important to both portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu is the issue of names as signs of her multiple identities. Emma was born in Normandy in the 980s. She was the daughter of Richard I, count of Rouen, and his second wife Gunnor (of the ‘noblest house of the Danes’) and the name she was given was a Frankish dynastic name. It was the name of the wife (d. 876) of Louis the German, of the daughter of Theobald, count of Blois and Chartres (c. 950–after 1003),4 of the widow (d. 988) of Lothair, king of the West Franks, the name of the sister of Hugh the Great of Neustria.5 It was also the name of her father’s first wife (d. c. 968), the daughter of the Hugh the Great and the sister of Hugh Capet. She either took or (more likely) was given the English name Ælfgifu at the time of her marriage to Æthelred II in 1002. Ælfgifu was a common name in Anglo-Saxon England and, like Emma, it was also one with specifically royal connotations. It was the name of Eadwig’s queen, of one of the daughters of Edward the Elder, of Æthelred’s first wife, of one of his daughters, and of his grandmother, the sainted wife of King Edmund. It also fit into the pattern of naming that Æthelred established for his own children, most of whom were given names from recent West Saxon dynastic history: Æthelstan, Ecgberht, Edmund, Edgar, Edith, Ælfgifu, Edward and Alfred. Both Emma’s new name and the names chosen for her sons by Æthelred (Edward and Alfred) suggest that Æthelred was using names as a means of uniting his second family with his first, perhaps in an effort to pre-empt or even deny the possibility of any ‘division in his house’.6 The success of the renaming of Emma, though not unprecedented, was unusual. Pauline Stafford notes that Emma’s Danish mother Gunnor and her sisters had been given Frankish names, but that they do not seem to have used them,7 and Cnut’s sister Estrith was also known by the name Margaret.8 Emma/Ælfgifu, on the other hand, at home in a multilingual court since childhood, appears under both names with equal frequency, the form used apparently having been determined by the function and audience of the document, and its public or private nature. Ian Short suggests that the multilingualism of the world

3 4 5 6 7 8

41. For the possibility of a coinage associated with Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, see Karkov, ‘Æthelflæd’s Exceptional Coinage’. See above, p. 114. Theobald’s daughter married William II, count of Poitou. This Emma was the daughter of Robert, king of the West Franks, and she married Ralph of Burgundy, who also became king of the West Franks. F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), p. 30. Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 93. M. K. Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (London and New York, 1993), pp. 109–10.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut into which Emma was born brought with it ‘the possibility of multiple identities’,9 and it is clear from the different contexts in which the names Emma and Ælfgifu were used that the two names had become signs of two separate but interrelated identities. Emma is used more frequently in continental sources than in English ones, although it does occur in a number of pre-Conquest English documents; while within England, Emma is generally used in private documents and Ælfgifu in public records, although again there are exceptions.10 Ælfwine, abbot of the New Minster, Winchester (1035–57) is one of the few individuals that we can be certain knew and used both names. For the queen’s obit in his private prayer book (London, British Library, MSS Cotton Titus D.xxvi and xxvii), begun some time before 1029, he chose Emma; in the Liber Vitae of New Minster and Hyde Abbey (London, British Library, MS Stowe 944), a public record of the abbey’s patrons and benefactors begun in 1031, he chose to use the name Ælfgifu instead. In the portrait that opens the New Minster Liber Vitae (fig. 17), the queen is framed by her official English name and title Ælfgifu regina, a name and title that are very much a part of the meaning and function of the portrait.

ÆLFGIFU AND CNUT IN THE NEW MINSTER LIBER VITAE

The frontispiece to the New Minster Liber Vitae is a double portrait of the queen and king presenting a golden altar cross to the Minster. The main scribe, and possibly the illuminator, was Ælfsige, a monk of the abbey.11 The Liber Vitae was a functional book used each day at mass to commemorate, to keep alive in memory and in spirit, the dead who were special to the Winchester community. It is therefore a book that is primarily by, for and about that Winchester community and its sense of its own identity under its new abbot – an identity, however, that was bound inextricably to its status as a royal foundation and to its history of royal patronage. The double portrait, which is surely the ultimate expression of the partnership between the king and the queen, is as much, if not more, about the cross, donated by Cnut probably in the 1020s, as it is about the royal couple.12 The cross is in the centre of the page, in full colour, and surmounted by Christ; in fact 9

I. Short, ‘Tam Angli Quam Franci: Self-definition in Anglo-Norman England’, Anglo-Norman Studies 18 (1995), 153–75, at 160. See also C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris, 1955), p. 294; J. Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak, corrected ed. (Baltimore and London, 1976), pp. 107–18; R. H. Block, Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages (Chicago, 1983); P. J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994), ch. 2. 10 She appears as Emma in the records of her donations to Ely and Christ Church, Canterbury, in at least one charter (S 1228) – where she appears as Ælfgyfa Imma – and in the will of Mantat the Anchorite (S 1523). See A. Campbell and S. Keynes, eds., Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge, 1998), p. xvii n. 2, pp. xxiv, xxv and 55–61. She is Ælfgifu Ymma in MS F of the Chronicle, dated by Peter Baker 1100–07 (possibly later). See P. Baker, ed., MS F, vol. 8 of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge, 2000), p. lxxvi, s.aa. 1002, 1013, 1017, 1037, 1040, 1051. Imma is added above the line to the entry for 1035 in the C text of the Chronicle. 11 Keynes (Liber Vitae, p. 69) suggests that Ælfwine might have been the artist responsible for the drawings, though there is little evidence to support such a suggestion. 12 A point stressed by Keynes (Liber Vitae, pp. 50 and 80). On the date of the donation see ibid., p. 35.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Table 1. CONTENTS OF THE LIBER VITAE 1–5 6 6v–7 7v

Preliminary material by Thomas Astle (1771) Dedication drawing Last Judgement Record of charitable act by John Suithill (1200); accounts of events in Winchester in the 1060s and 1140s 8–12v Early History of the New Minster 13rv Preface to the Liber Vitae 14 Kings of the West Saxons, Cynegils (611–42) to Æthelred II (978–1016) Kings of England, Edmund (1916) to Henry V (1413–22) 14v Æthelings 14v–17 Episcopal lists 17 Ealdormen 17rv Deceased benefactors 17v–20 Members of the community of the Old Minster, Winchester 20 Additional entries of various types 20v–23v Members of the community of New Minster 964–1290 24 Customs of Hyde Abbey 24v Friends of Hyde Abbey 25rv Friends of the New Minster 26rv Women in confraternity with the New Minster 26v–27 Other religious houses in confraternity with the New Minster 27rv Members of the community of Ely Abbey 27v–28 Members of the community of Romsey Abbey 28rv Men in confraternity with the New Minster 28v–29 Men and women in confraternity with the abbey 1031 to early 12th century 29v–33 Will of King Alfred 33–34 Tract on the Six Ages of the World and related texts 34v–36v The royal saints of Kent 36v–39 The resting places of saints 39rv West Saxon regnal lists 40rv Letter of Eadwine (monk and ‘child-master’ of the New Minster) to Bishop Ælfsige 41r Charter of King William I for Abbot Riwallon 41–49v Gospel Lectionary 50–54v Blessings 54v–55 Men and women in confraternity with Hyde Abbey 12th century – c. 1450 55v List of relics at Hyde Abbey 56rv Incomplete names of the saints in heaven 57rv Vernacular text of the founding of the New Minster 57v Relics at Hyde Abbey 58rv Relics at the New Minster (formerly at the beginning of the manuscript) 59r Charter of Abbot Riwallon 59v–60 Colloquy between Damasus and Jerome 60–61 Liturgical texts 61v The number of languages in the world 62–64v Members of the community of Hyde Abbey 13th–15th century 65–68v Men and women in confraternity with Hyde Abbey 1467–c. 1530 69r Thomas Astle’s note on the history of the Liber Vitae

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut when viewed from any distance at all, the surrounding figures fade away and only the cross, the books held by Christ and Mary, and the inscriptions identifying the queen and king stand out. Yellow is used to link the cross to the books held by Christ and Mary, and the repetition of the motif of the book is used to link the portrait page to the double-page image of the Last Judgement on folios 6v and 7r (figs. 18 and 19), and to the Liber Vitae as a book itself. The picture thus takes on multiple meanings: it is the commemoration of a specific donation, it is a double ruler portrait, it is part of a sequence of illustrations of the Last Judgement, and it is about the memory and names of the queen and king, and their place within the Winchester community. The composition and iconography of the page represent a development of the image of rulership established by Edgar in the New Minster Charter frontispiece (fig. 7). This was no doubt a deliberate act designed to suggest historical and political continuity between the reign of Edgar and that of Cnut (noticeably skipping over the reign of Æthelred), and to provide visual continuity between two books that were likely to have been displayed side by side on the altar, at least on certain occasions.13 Both manuscripts are records of royal donations offered ultimately to Christ in majesty and the patron saints Mary and Peter, and at their most superficial level both portraits also represent the divine source of royal power. Unlike the New Minster Charter portrait of Edgar, however, the portrait of Cnut is worked into a narrative context that incorporates both a contemporary Winchester setting and the eternity of the heavenly kingdom, and also places the queen in an unusually prominent position in the place of honour to Christ’s right.14 The figure of the queen The position of the name and figure of the queen in the Liber Vitae portrait remains controversial, particularly amongst art historians, despite the basically traditional sources for the page’s imagery. The central composition shows the influence of the double ruler portraits of Byzantine and Ottonian art in which empresses and queens are frequently depicted alongside their husbands (fig. 20),15 but in all of these earlier images the king stands in the place of honour to Christ’s right.16 One exception to this rule is the little enamel portrait of abbess 13 14

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, pp. 27, 32, 38 and 53. A point first noted by T. A. Heslop, ‘The Production of de luxe Manuscripts and the Patronage of King Cnut and Queen Emma’, ASE 19 (1990), 151–95, at 157 n. 16. 15 See above, p. 14. While rare in Carolingian art, one does survive in the frontispiece to the Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura (Abbazia di San Paolo, fol. 1). The portrait shows Charles the Bald with Ermintrude and/or Richildis, and is inscribed Noblis ad laevam coniunx de more venustat quia insignis proles in regnum rite paretur (‘the noble wife adorns his left side, according to custom, by whom a distinguished heir shall legitimately be produced for the kingdom’). 16 This type of double imperial portrait appears on Byzantine coins as early as 491. (See L. Brubaker and H. Tobler, ‘The Gender of Money: Byzantine Empresses on Coins (324–802)’, in Gendering the Middle Ages, ed. P. Stafford and A. B. Mulder-Bakker [Oxford, 2001], pp. 42–64.) The image of the ruler crowned or blessed by Christ in other forms of art is a Byzantine iconographic innovation associated with the reign of Basil I (867–86). The composition of ivories showing the double crowning (or blessing) is ultimately based on that of the Crucifixion. It should be noted, however, that while Mary

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Matilda and her brother duke Otto of Bavaria at the base of the altar cross of Matilda of Essen (made between 971 and 982), which shows Matilda in the same position as Ælfgifu, but in this case the prominence of the female figure is clearly dictated by Matilda’s status as abbess of the convent for which the cross was made.17 The reasons for Ælfgifu’s prominence are much less easily pinned down. It has been suggested, for example, that the queen may have donated the cross to the abbey in Cnut’s absence,18 a suggestion for which there is not the least bit of evidence. Ælfgifu’s donations to various Anglo-Saxon and continental churches are recorded, but Cnut’s name is the only one mentioned in the later accounts of this donation, and it is Cnut who has his hand firmly on the cross in the Liber Vitae portrait.19 Ælfgifu is named as the donor of the ‘Greek shrine’ in the list of relics inserted in front of the picture in the mid-eleventh century, so that it is reasonable to assume that if she played an unusually prominent role in the donation of the cross it too would have been recorded. 20 The possibility of a joint

17

18 19 20

stands on Christ’s right in Byzantine Crucifixion scenes, the empress does not. On a tenth-century ivory triptych (Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) of the Crucifixion with flanking figures of Mary and John, and Constantine and Helena, Mary and Constantine stand to Christ’s right, and John and Helena to his left. See further J. Lowden, Early Christian and Byzantine Art (London, 1997), pp. 217–20; L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 158–9. It is worth noting that Matilda of Essen was the cousin of ealdorman Æthelweard for whom he wrote his Chronicle. She was descended from King Alfred, and was thus closely related to the West Saxon dynasty – though obviously not to either Ælfgifu or Cnut. Given this connection it is just possible that the double portrait on her cross had some influence on the Liber Vitae portrait, though it is unclear exactly how and when this would have occurred. It is also worth noting in this regard that the Virgin of Essen, a gilded wooden statue of the Virgin and Child, may also provide a parallel for the gold and silver statues of Æthelthryth and her sisters that were installed around the high altar at Ely in the late tenth century. On the Ely statues, see Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, pp. 78–9; C. E. Karkov, ‘The Body of St Æthelthryth: Desire, Conversion and Reform in Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, ed. M. Carver (York, 2002), pp. 398–411. M. Caviness, ‘Anchoress, Abbess, and Queen: Donors and Patrons or Intercessors and Matrons?’ in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. McCash, pp. 105–54, at 126–7. As does Matilda of Essen in the portrait on the base of her cross. Now on fol. 58rv: Þis is se halidom ðe is on ðam grecysscan scrine ðe seo hlæfdige geaf into nywan mynstre. Þæt is of sce iohanne baptista & of montem sion & of ðam stane þe seo rod stod on uppan ðe ure dryhten onðrowode & of þære binnan ðe ure dryhten onlæg & of mensa domini, & of þare gyred þe moyses hæfde ofer þa readan sæ, & of ðare dune monte caluarie, & of sepulchrum domini, & of lignum domini, & of sce andree apostle, & of sce pancrate, & of melchisedech, & of sce cyriace & sce martines toð, & of sce remei, & of sce hilarii, & of sce ceaddan toð, & of sce firmine, & of sce cosme and damiane, & of sce gaugerice, & of sce georige, & manna domini, & of ures dryyhtenes reafe, & of sce tremori, & of sce bricii, & of sce maximiane, & of sce cyllias earm, & of sce ualentinus heafod, & of sce desideri (‘This is the holiness [i.e. these are the relics] that is [are] in the Greek shrine that the Lady [Emma] gave to the New Minster. That is: of St John the Baptist and of Mount. Sion, and of the stone on which the cross stood on which our Lord suffered, and of the manger in which our Lord lay, and of the Lord’s table, and of the staff that Moses had over the Red Sea, and of the hill of Mount Calvary, and of the Lord’s sepulchre, and of the wood of the Lord, and of St Andrew the apostle, and of St Pancratius, and of Melchisedech, and of St Vedastus, and of St Yppolitus, and of St Pelagia, and of St Cyriacus, and of St Martin’s tooth, and of St Remigius, and of St Hilarius, and of St Cead’s tooth, and of St Firminius, and of Saints Cosmos and Damian, and of St Gaugericus, and of St George, and of the manna of our Lord, and of our Lord’s garment, and of St Tremeur, and of St Briccus, and of St Maximianus, and of St Cyllias’s arm, and of St Valentine’s head, and of St Desiderius’)

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut donation cannot be ruled out, as evidenced by the couple’s gift of a shrine for the relics of St Vincent to Abbingdon;21 nevertheless, even a joint donation might not be enough to explain the composition. Some scholars have tried to explain away the queen, arguing for example that Cnut’s height, his active pose with his sword extending beyond the limits of the frame, his crown, and the use of square rather than rustic capitals for his inscription indicate that he is to be understood as the most important figure.22 If these details are considered individually, however, their significance becomes at the very least arguable. In the New Minster Charter portrait Edgar is the largest figure, and he is depicted in the most active pose, yet he could hardly be considered more important than Christ, Mary or Peter. Nor could the cleric to Edgar’s left in the frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia (fig. 13) be considered more important than Edgar himself. The sword is an abivalent symbol whose meanings are discussed in more detail below. At its most superficial level, however, it is in this portrait a stock device for directing the reader’s attention to the next page, much like the scroll held by Edgar, Æthelwold and Dunstan in the Regularis Concordia frontispiece. Furthermore the use of different scripts for the name and title of the queen and king might simply be a factor of the relative length of their names and titles, rather than a sign of their greater or lesser importance. One scholar, apparently confused by the number of women named Ælfgifu active in the first half of the eleventh century has argued that the inscription Ælfgifu regina ‘does not identify the lady’.23 I assume that the implication is that the ‘lady’ could be Ælfgifu of Northampton, Cnut’s first wife and the mother of his son Harald Harefoot, although the title regina, and the date and provenance of the manuscript, as well as the iconography of the page, all indicate that this could not possibly be the case. To a certain extent all these interpretations suppress the primary function of the page as a commemoration of the donation of the cross to the Minster by making the page more about the couple than the act of donation. No matter what the position of the couple with respect to each other, it was surely the giving of the golden cross that was of primary importance to abbot Ælfwine and the monks of the New Minster – though they were also clearly interested in suggesting some sort of 21

An inscription on the Abingdon shrine records that it was given to the abbey by both Ælfgifu and Cnut, though the text of the Abingdon Chronicle entry for 1016 describes it as having been commissioned by Cnut alone (see Caviness, ‘Anchoress, Abbess’, pp. 124–5). However, the Chronicle entry does quote the text of the inscription, so that the record of the joint donation was clear enough. The inscription read: Rex Cnut hanc thecam, necnon Ælfgiva regina, Cudere jusserunt; bis centum necne decemque Coctos igne chrison mancosos atque viginti, Necne duas libras argenti pondere magno. (‘King Cnut and Queen Ælfgifu ordered this reliquary to be made from 230 gold coins refined by fire, and two pounds of silver.’) The Chronicle entry went on to identify the queen, using both her names, as having been previously the wife of King Æthelred, and then the wife of Cnut and mother of Harthacnut: Hæc vero nominata regina binomia quidem, scilicet Ælgiva Imma, Ædelredo regi connubio primum copulata, quam iste Cnuto, regno confirmato, in conjugem duxit, Hardecnutonemque ex ea genuit (J. Stevenson, ed., Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, vol. 1 of Rerum Britannicarum Mediiævi Scriptores or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland [London, 1858], 433–4). 22 Gameson, Role of Art, pp. 74, 130–1. 23 Caviness, ‘Anchoress, Abbess’, p. 125.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England balance or equality between the queen and king. Given the function of the page as a record of royal patronage, it is possible that the prominence of Cnut’s crown (it is actually too big to fit comfortably on his head) may be due to the tradition that he donated his crown to the New Minster. The story as recorded by Goscelin of Canterbury and Henry of Huntingdon,24 is later, admittedly, and may be nothing more than a fiction. Cnut is also recorded as having given a crown to Christ Church, Canterbury, or at least to have placed one on the altar there.25 At Winchester Cnut is said to have placed his crown on a crucifix and, if there is any truth to the story, the dramatic gesture of the crown bearing angel who points to Christ may be intended as a reference to this donation – in addition to its more general function as a sign that Cnut rules by divine right.26 The suggestion that the donation (if real) might have been motivated by Cnut’s seeing the crown of the Ottonian emperor Henry II over the altar in St Peter’s when he attended the coronation of Conrad II in Rome in 1027 has much to recommend it,27 particularly given the likely dependence of the page on Ottonian models, and the oft-noted resemblance of the arched crown to that of the Ottonian emperors.28 It is also most likely that the position of the portraits of the king and queen on the page reflects their position within Winchester tradition, and possibly also within the space of the city itself. In 1012 Æthelred had given Ælfgifu the property known as de terre gode begeaton (‘the well-obtained land’)29 formerly owned by Ælfric goda begeata (S 925).30 Ælfgifu’s property was located to the 24

25 26

27 28

29

30

D. W. Rollason, ed., ‘Goscelin of Canterbury’s Account of the Translation and Miracles of St Mildrith’, Medieval Studies 48 (1986), 139–210, at 163; Henry of Huntingdon, Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum (History of the English People), ed. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), pp. 368–9. See also Heslop, ‘Production of de luxe Manuscripts’, 187. Lawson, Cnut, pp. 136–7; Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury, pp. 293 and 386; P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 959. Barbara Raw has also pointed out that the earliest crowned Crucifixion is on fol. 65v of Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, an iconographic innovation that lends further support to the story of the donation. It should be noted, however, that the image of Christ in the Prayerbook is crowned with a diadem (but see further below). Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography, p. 129. Lawson, Cnut, p. 137. For the Ottonian crowns see especially J. Deer, ‘Kaiser Otto de Grosse und die Reichskrone’, Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte und Arkëologie des Frümittelalter (Cologne, 1962), 261–77; M. SchulzeDörrlamm, Die Kaiserkrone Konrads II: Eine archäologische Untersuchung zu Alter und Herkunft der Reichskrone, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Monographien 23 (Sigmaringen, 1991). But see also below, p. 137. After studying the forms of godebegeaton recorded down to the eighteenth century, W. H. Stevenson concluded that ‘It is clear that the vowel (of Gode) was long and the compound can have nothing to do with God.’ Quoted in A. W. Goodman, The Manor of Goodbegot in the City of Winchester (Winchester, 1923), pp. 68–9. Quapropter ego Æðelredus egregie opulent”que monarches Britannie . legitimo iugalitatis uinculo mihi astrict” Ælfgyfæ uocabulo predium quoddam quod infra ciuitatis Wentan” menia ad septemptrionis dextram iuxtaque politanam nundinationis plateam gratulabundus donaui . hocque protestaminis titulo hac inculcare griphia demandaui . Quo quippe predio basilica á quodam ciuitatis eiusdem prefecto nomine Æðelwino sancti Petri honore fabrefacta nitescit. (‘Wherefore I, Æthelred, monarch of eminent and wealthy Britain, have voluntarily given to her called Ælfgifu who is bound to me by the lawful bond of marriage, a certain property within the walls of Winchester, to the north-east, and adjacent to the city marketplace, and I have sought to establish this title of claim with this document. In which property indeed thrives a church, skilfully constructed in honour of St. Peter by a certain reeve of the same city called Æthelwine’ [Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 217]). See also S 1153, Edward the Confessor’s confirmation of the grant of the same land by his mother to the Old Minster:

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut north, and the royal palace most probably to the south of the New Minster.31 As the drawing is set within the east end of the Minster, it is possible that the position of the queen and king simply reflects the position of their respective seats of power relative to the church, and perhaps also the position they would have occupied within the church.32 Looking west from the high altar in the east end of the Minster, Ælfgifu’s residence would have been to the right and Cnut’s most likely to the left.33 Cnut had also re-established Winchester as a royal centre, spending more time in the city than had his immediate predecessors (who leaned towards London), so that Ælfwine may have had particular reason to commemorate the renewed royal presence within the city. But the positioning of the figures is also one that is in keeping with, indeed might even be said to commemorate, the image of Anglo-Saxon queenship developed in Winchester in the second half of the tenth century – an image that had its roots in the early Anglo-Saxon church – and this is most probably the primary explanation for the queen’s position within the portrait. Mary and Peter at the top of the page are the spiritual equivalents of the earthly queen and king. In England the association of the earthly queen with Mary queen of heaven, had been developed at Winchester for Ælfthryth, Æthelred’s mother, who had died shortly before his marriage to Emma/Ælfgifu. Ælfwine, a pupil of Æthelwold’s, would certainly have been aware of developments in Marian devotion at his master’s Winchester. The Office of the Virgin Mary in Ælfwine’s private prayerbook, the earliest surviving text of a Marian office, is likely to have been instituted by Æthelwold.34 As we have seen, it was also at Æthelwold’s

31 32

33 34

Eadward cing gret Stigand . bisceop . & Godwine eorl . & ealle þa burhmen on Wincestre . frondlice . & ic kyðe eow þæt ic hæbbe geunnen þæt se cwyde stande þe min moder becwæð Criste & sancte Petre & sancte Swiðune & þan hirede into Ealdan Mynstre . þæt is se haga þe man hæt Ælfrices gode begeaton . Þæne ic wille þæt hi habban eal swa freo wið ealle þa þing þe to me belimpoð . eal swa he hire æfter mines fæder gyfe on handan stod. (‘King Edward greets in friendship Bishop Stigand and Earl Godwine and all the citizens in Winchester. And I tell you that I have granted that the bequest shall stand which my mother bequeathed to Christ and St. Peter and St. Swithun and the community into [the possession of] the Old mInster, that is the tenement which is called “Ælfric’s good yield”. I desire also that they shall have [it] just as freely, in respect of all the things which pertain to me, as it belonged to her in accordance with my father’s gift’ [ibid., p. 222]). See the map of Winchester in Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 252. The evidence for a gendered use of space within the later Anglo-Saxon church, with women to the north and men to the south, is ambiguous at best, but it does seem to have existed within both the early Irish and Northumbrian church (see below, p. 128). Cogitosus’s Life of St Brigit describes a wall that ran down the centre of the church at Kildare, with the north side of the church used by the women, and the south by the men. (See most recently C. Neuman de Vegvar, ‘Romanitas and Realpolitik in Cogitosus’ Description of the Church of St Brigit, Kildare’, in The Cross Goes North, ed. Carver, pp. 153–70.) It also seems to have been the custom in some ninth-century Frankish churches, and at least to have been known in England in the tenth and eleventh centuries via Carolingian and Ottonian texts. Amalarius of Metz describes men and women standing separately to receive the eucharist within the church: Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ed. J. M. Hanssens, Studi e Testi 139 (Vatican City, 1948), Lib. officialis III.2 (De situ ecclesiae), pp. 262–4; see also, ibid., III.32 (De pacis osculo), p. 364. I would like to thank Christopher A. Jones for bringing these references to my attention. See also the late ninth- or early tenth-century Frankish De divinis officiis (PL 101, 1173–286). Leslie Brubaker and Helen Tobler point out that the hierarchical arrangement of figures on Byzantine coins ‘replicated actual imperial protocol’ (‘Gender of Money’, p. 43). B. Günzel, ed., Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, HBS vol. CVIII (London, 1993), p. 53.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Winchester that the image of the queen became modelled on that of Mary, and the image of Mary modelled on that of the queen. Although Æthelwold was the first to popularise the association of the queen with Mary, and probably the first to exploit it for political purposes, he was also merely developing an association already implicit in Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical history. Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica, composed a song in honour of the virgin abbess Æthelthryth (d. 679), which likened her to Mary, and identified her as a bride of the heavenly bridegroom, but most importantly stressed that she was both earthly queen and mother of Heaven’s king.35 Æthelthryth appears in the position of Mary, to Christ’s right, in Æthelwold’s Benedictional (fols. 90v–91r). Æthelthryth is depicted as a bride of Christ rather than as an earthly queen, but we should not forget that she had been a queen before entering the church. She is, then, a queen standing to Christ’s right some sixty years before the production of the Liber Vitae drawing. One should also note in this respect the late seventh- and early eighth-century tombs of the royal women at Whitby, located to the north of the high altar, and the name Kyneburg, possibly that of a Mercian princess, inscribed on the north side of the Bewcastle cross as additional early examples of royal women located to the north of the cross or Christ.36 Ælfgifu’s position is therefore not the least bit unusual within either the historical or art historical record of Anglo-Saxon England in general, and of Winchester in particular. Moreover, Emma/Ælfgifu was a great patron of Ely and would certainly have been familiar with the abbey church in which gold and silver statues of Æthelthryth and the other Ely virgins stood to either side of the high altar. Her gifts to the monastery are recorded in the Liber Eliensis in language which also reflects the esteem with which she was remembered there: Insignem quoque purpuram, aurifriso undique cinctam, fecit et per partes auro et gemmis pretiosis mirifico opere velud tabulatis adornavit illicque optulit, ut nulla alia in Anglorum regione talis operis et pretii inveniatur. Opus quippe illius materiam precellere videtur atque ceteris sanctis nostris pannum sericum unicuique, licet minoris pretii, auro et gemmis intextum, optulit, que penes nos hactenus reponuntur. Fecit etiam indumenta altaris, magnam pallam viridi coloris insignem cum laminis aureis, ut in faciem altaris per diem sollemnem celsius appareret, et desuper bissus sanguineo fulgore in longitudinem altaris et ad cornua eius attingens usque ad terram cum aurifriso, latitudinem habens pedis, spectaculum decoris magni pretii administrat.37 35

Hist. eccles., iv.20 (pp. 398–9): Percipit inde decus reginae et sceptra sub astris;/ plus super astra manens percipit inde decus./ Quid petis, alma, uirem, sponso iam dedita summo?/ sponsus adest Christus; quid petis, alma uirem?/ Regis ut aetherei matrem iam, credo, sequaris,/ to quoque sis mater regis ut aetherei (‘Proud is she, queening it on earthly throne; In heaven established far more proud is she. Queen, wherefore seek a mate, with Christ thy groom? To Him betrothed, queen, wherefore seek a mate? Royal Mother of Heaven’s King your leader now; You too, maybe, a mother of Heaven’s King’). See Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 122–3 for a comparison of Bede’s song with the benediction written by Æthelwold for Æthelthryth’s feast. 36 See C. E. Karkov, ‘Whitby, Jarrow and the Commemoration of Death in Northumbria’, in Northumbria’s Golden Age, ed. J. Hawkes and S. Mills (Stroud, 1999), pp. 126–35, at pp. 133–4. 37 Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, p. 149. ‘She also made and gave to this place a marvelous purpura encircled everywhere with gold edging, and adorned it in places with gold and precious gems of marvelous workmanship, as if it were paneled, such that no other is to be found in the land of the English of such workmanship and costliness. Her work seems indeed to transcend the subject; and for each of our other saints she gave a silk covering, although of lesser value, covered with gold and gems, which are preserved with

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut The same source also records that in honour of St Æthelthryth she gave to the abbey a precious altar frontal beautifully decorated in gold and silver, and worked with an image of Christ in majesty.38 Although the Liber Vitae portrait does represent a development of the image of the queen established for Ælfthryth,39 there does also seem to have been an important difference in the way queenship was exercised by Ælfthryth during her reign, and the way it was exercised by Ælfgifu at least during her marriage to Cnut, as well as a corresponding difference in the application of Marian imagery to the two queens. If Ælfthryth was ever consecrated queen, either at the time of her marriage to Edgar or at a later date, the ordo that would have been used was derived from the ceremony for the ordination of an abbess and combined nuptial and royal imagery in a way that suggested that the earthly queen was a mirror of Mary, the Bride of Christ.40 The ordo that would have been used for Emma’s coronation in 1017, on the other hand, emphasised political rather than nuptial duties, stating that her role was to ‘be a peaceweaver, to bring tranquillity in her days, to be an English queen, and to be a consort in royal power’.41 The Marian iconography of the Liber Vitae portrait may well reflect a similar shift in the association of Mary not with the queen as bride and mother, but with the queen as a politically active protector of the realm. Much attention has been paid to the veil that Æfgifu receives from the angel in the Liber Vitae portrait, but less attention has been paid to the diadem that she wears beneath the veil or hood of her earthly dress. There is absolutely no material evidence for the shape or even existence of the queen’s crown in Anglo-Saxon England, but both diadems and crowns were worn by Anglo-Saxon kings in the portraits on their coinage. The diadem that Ælfgifu wears may then indicate nothing more than the fact that she is queen of the English; however, Ælfgifu’s diadem is very like that worn by Mary in the picture of the ‘Quinity’ in Ælfwine’s prayerbook (Cotton Titus D.xxvii, fol. 75v),42 and its use may have been intended to reinforce the association between the two women. Interestingly,

38

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40 41 42

us to this day. She also made altar cloths – a large and glorious hanging of green colour with bands of gold, so that at the front of the altar it might appear more wonderful on festival days, and on the top, along the length of the altar, a covering blood-red in splendour with gold edging, a foot wide, reaching right to the ground at its corners, presents a beautiful spectacle of great costliness’ (trans. S. Keynes in Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. lxxvi). Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, p. 292: Ibi i frontale bene paratum auro et argento, sed maiestas troni deest, quam venerabilis Ymma regina paravit in honorem sancte Æðeldreðe. See also p. 294 for a list of her other gifts. Both Francis Wormald and Jan Gerchow have suggested that the portrait of Ælfgifu and Cnut may have been modeled on a lost portrait of Æfthryth and Edgar, though clearly this is highly speculative. The fact that the portrait is inscribed with the names of the queen and king is, for example, perfectly appropriate to the location of the image in a liber vitae, the very function of which was to record names, and need not reflect any updating of an earlier composition. See further F. Wormald, ‘Late Anglo-Saxon Art: Some Questions and Suggestions’, in Collected Writings, I: Studies in Medieval Art from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, ed. J. J. G. Alexander, T. J. Brown and J. Gibbs (London, 1984), pp. 105–10; J. Gerchow, ‘Prayers for King Cnut: The Liturgical Commemoration of a Conqueror’, in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. C. Hicks (Stamford, 1992), pp. 219–38, at 223. See above, p. 112. Stafford, Emma and Edith, pp. 177–8. See Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. Temple, pl. 245.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Robert Deshman notes that in Æthelwold’s Benedictional the diadem is a royal attribute belonging primarily to Christ (as it does also in the drawing of the Crucifixion in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook), and the trefoiled crown an attribute of lesser sacred figures,43 while Raw has documented its use by Anglo-Saxon kings and saints.44 Moreover, as a symbol of heavenly reward granted in exchange for earthly munificence, the diadem may well reflect the esteem which the queen enjoyed as a patron of the New Minster. Such a symbolism would be in keeping with the heavenly nature of the veil she receives from the angel. It may be going too far to grant the exalted status of a saint to Ælfgifu in the Liber Vitae portrait, but it is clear from the context of the illustration as part of a Last Judgement sequence, and from the way in which the angel indicates that the source of the gift is Christ in majesty, that this is no simple marriage veil,45 or any other form of earthly gift. It is a sign of the future rewards that Ælfgifu will receive on entering the kingdom of heaven. Jan Gerchow has interpreted the veil as the stola, the veil of the blessed that crowns the eternal soul, and this seems nearer the mark,46 although it may also be that the gift was one that had a relevance to the image of the queen during her own lifetime. In an illuminating discussion of the history and symbolism of the veil of the Virgin, Annemarie Weyl Carr has shown that relics of the Virgin’s clothing, particularly her veil and her tunic, carried multiple and shifting meanings.47 In sixth- and seventh-century Byzantium Mary and the relic of the veil became ‘guarantors of eternal victory’ for both emperors and empresses, and the royal couples themselves became partners in victory.48 Such symbolism fits well with both the ordo thought to have been used for Emma’s consecration and with the basic equality of the queen and king in the Liber Vitae drawing. Emma’s donation of the ‘Greek shrine’ with its relics of Christ and various saints to the New Minster indicates at the very least a familiarity with Byzantine art and eastern relics,49 and suggests further the possibility of knowledge of the symbolism associated with the veil in the East in eleventh-century Winchester. Even though there is clear evidence that the story of Mary’s veil at Blachernai was known in the West by at least 800,50 Ælfgifu’s (or Ælfwine’s) direct knowledge of its symbolism must remain no more than a possibility. But as Weyl Carr stresses, the symbolism of the veil and the tunic may have overlapped, and it is inconceivable 43 44

45 46 47

48 49 50

Deshman, ‘Benedictus’, p. 217. B. Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography, pp. 133–4. Raw notes that both King John and Henry III wore circlets but, perhaps more relevant to the Liber Vitae, that, according to Reginald of Durham, St Cuthbert was wearing a jewel-studded fillet when his tomb was opened in 1104. Raw suggests that this was the ‘royal cap’ presented to the saint’s shrine by King Æthelstan in 934. Pace G. R. Owen-Crocker, ‘Wynflæd’s Wardrobe’, ASE 8 (1970), 195–222; Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 179. Gerchow, ‘Prayers for King Cnut’, p. 225. The relic of the veil was kept in a circular church next to the basilica of the Virgin at Blachernai at the northern end of Constantinople. See A. Weyl Carr, ‘Threads of Authority: the Virgin Mary’s Veil in the Middle Ages’, in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon (New York, 2001), pp. 59–93, at 61. Weyl Carr, ‘Threads of Authority’, pp. 64 and 66. See above, n. 20. Weyl Carr, ‘Threads of Authority’, p. 72.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut that Emma would not have been familiar with the similar symbolism and power attributed to Chartres’s most famous relic, the tunic that the Virgin wore at the Nativity. According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, writing for Emma’s family in Normandy in the 990s, the robe was responsible for the miraculous victory of Chartres over the Norman Rollo (Hrólfr),51 Emma’s great-grandfather, and it thus became a symbol of victory just like the veil.52 If the person of the queen is to be identified with Mary, as the person of the king is to be identified with St Peter,53 it is just possible that the fold of cloth that Ælfgifu grasps in her hand54 is also to be associated with the protection of Mary symbolised by both the relic of the robe and the book that Mary holds in this drawing, just as Cnut’s sword and Peter’s key are symbols of their guardianship of their respective kingdoms.55 It may also be significant in this regard that the clothing of St Edith of Wilton, whose image was indisputably modelled on that of Mary,56 was amongst the relics kept in the shrine made by Ælfwold the cyricweard at the New Minster.57 Equally important to the portrayal of Mary in the Liber Vitae drawing, and thus equally important to her association with Ælfgifu is the fact that she holds a book. Weyl Carr suggests that in this and other Anglo-Saxon images in which she appears with the same attribute she ‘has voice’.58 The book held by Mary resonates with the other books depicted in the three-page opening sequence of drawings: the book held by the monk at the bottom of the frontispiece, a representation of the Liber Vitae itself; the Book of Judgement held by Christ in majesty at the top of the same page; the book held by the saint who leads the procession of the saved towards heaven (possibly to be identified as St Paul) at the top of folio 6v; the books held by the two clerics, one identified as Æthelgar, appointed as the first abbot of the reformed New Minster in 964, who stand below him;59 and the books held by the archangel Michael and the devil in the scene of the battle for a human soul in the central register of folio 7r. In the context of her role as guarantor of eternal victory, Mary’s book represents the hope for eternal victory at the Last Judgement of those whose names are recorded in the Liber Vitae itself. The fact that the books held by Mary and the figures on folio 6v are closed helps to further the notion of triumph. The closed books suggest again that the prayers of the community will be heard, and that the king, queen, and special dead of 51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

E. Christiansen, ed., Dudo of St Quentin. History of the Normans: Translation with Introduction and Notes (Woodbridge, 1998), p. 41: ‘Suddenly, bishop Walter charged out of the city robed as if to celebrate mass, and bearing the cross and the tunic of the holy Virgin Mary in his hands, with the clergy and the citizens following behind, attended by “steel-clad squadrons” he struck the backs of the pagans with spears and words.’ See also E. Searle, ‘Fact and Pattern in Heroic History: Dudo of Saint-Quentin’, Viator 15 (1984), 119–37; E. Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840–1066 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), pp. 63–4; Weyl Carr, ‘Threads of Authority’, p. 72. Chartres was also one of the churches that enjoyed the patronage of Cnut. See F. Behrends, The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres (Oxford, 1976), pp. 66–9. See below, p. 133. Professor Cynthia Hahn informs me that saints are often depicted in a similar pose in Byzantine art. See below, p. 134. See above, p. 114. See fol. 58v. Weyl Carr, ‘Threads of Authority’, p. 74. The inscription +Ælgarus was added by a later hand.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Winchester will be amongst the saved. The heavenly veil and crown that Ælfgifu and Cnut receive are also indications that they will be amongst the saved. By contrast, the open books held by the monk, Christ, Michael and the devil symbolise judgement in process, and draw attention to the fact that the final Judgement has yet to be written.60 The open book held by the monk, this book, has only just been begun, and names will continue to be entered in or excluded from it, while the open book held by Christ, the angel and the devil represent the as yet to be written future. It can also be argued that no matter what Ælfwine’s purpose in creating the Liber Vitae, and no matter how the portrait functions as a commemoration of a specific donation, the composition of both the frontispiece and the manuscript as a whole have the effect of turning the book into Ælfgifu’s book. The preface that introduces the lists of those to be commemorated in the Liber Vitae states that ‘Here follow in their appropriate order the names of the brethren and of the monks, and also of the friends and benefactors whether living or dead’ of the New Minster.61 The preface specifies ‘in their appropriate order’, and Ælfgifu was considered the appropriate name to head those lists.62 This position again may relate to the queen’s association with the figure of Mary. The New Minster was without doubt a West Saxon pantheon,63 and the Liber Vitae, as Simon Keynes has demonstrated, was a book produced by abbot Ælfwine, eager ‘at the outset of his career to assert the historical identity of his community, and to secure for his house its appointed place in the kingdom’.64 The text of the Liber Vitae, which includes the earliest extant version of the will of King Alfred, is introduced by an account of the abbey’s history (fols. 8r–12v) from the death of Alfred and the foundation of the New Minster by Edward the Elder to the construction of the famous multi-storey tower under Æthelred in the 980s. It is the name and figure of Ælfgifu that provide the historical and political link back to that early history for Ælfwine. It is Ælfgifu who bridges the past and present documented in this book, just as it is Mary who bridges the Old and New Testaments, or the earthly space in which the prayers of the New Minster community are offered, and the heavenly space in which they are received. In terms of the manuscript as a whole, the arrangement has the effect of creating a layering of time in which we move from the eternal present of the frontispiece to the future of the Last Judgement, back to the history of the abbey and the country, and forward again towards the Last Judgement visualised in the opening sequence of drawings (see table 1 for a complete list of the manuscript’s contents). As with so many Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and works of art, the Liber Vitae incorporates 60

61 62

63 64

On the motif of the blank page in art, see P. Goodrich, ‘The Iconography of Nothing: Blank Spaces and the Representation of Law in Edward VI and the Pope’, in Law and the Image, ed. Douzinas and Nead, pp. 89–114. Fol. 13r. Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, trans. p. 83. She is also commemorated in the list of women in confraternity with the New Minster on fol. 26r. While Cnut was not originally included in the list of West Saxon kings to be commemorated on fol. 14r, his name ends the West Saxon regnal list on fol. 39v. See Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, pp. 16–48, for royal burials in the Minster, and the history of royal patronage. See also M. Biddle, Winchester in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1976), pp. 314–15. Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, p. 38.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut older levels of texts. There is substantial evidence to indicate that the core of the manuscript was written under Æthelred II, perhaps as a delayed response to the New Minster Charter’s call for just such a manuscript to be compiled,65 which would mean that the figure of the queen quite literally negotiated the space between the Old Regime of Æthelred, and the New Regime of Cnut, the origins of the book and book in its present form. The figure of the king Of course the portrait of Cnut has its meaning too, and it provides a perfect complement to the portrait of Ælfgifu within both the design of the page and the manuscript as a whole. If the traditional association of the queen with Mary dictated that she be placed in the position of honour to Christ’s right, Cnut’s height, the large crown, and possibly the hierarchy of scripts might be ways of compensating for Cnut’s being placed in the lesser position. The intention may have been to show them, as far as possible, as equals. This in itself would be highly unusual as no earlier royal consort outside of Byzantium is know to have enjoyed such a position during her lifetime. It is also markedly different from the traditional Byzantine and Ottonian ways of representing such scenes (fig. 20).66 Just as Ælfgifu is to be associated with the figure of the Virgin who stands above her, Cnut is to be associated with the figure of St Peter who stands above him; and just as the portrait of the queen represents a development of the royal iconography created for Ælfthryth by Æthelwold, so the king’s portrait represents a development of the imagery created for Edgar. Moreover, the descending angels with their upward pointing fingers recall those of the Ascension of Christ in the Benedictional of Æthelwold (fol. 64v), while the arc of upward gazing monks at the bottom of the page recalls the similarly positioned apostles in the miniature of Pentecost from the same manuscript (fol. 67v). As outlined in the previous chapter, the cross of Christ and the cross-key of Peter were cognate symbols of judgement, protection and victory. Both Christ’s cross and Peter’s key opened the gates of paradise – Crux Christi clauis paradisi est, crux Christi aperuit paradisum67 – and the cross donated by Cnut is, in the context of this manuscript, the key that will open the doors of paradise for him (and Ælfgifu). That this is to a certain extent envisaged as a done deal is suggested by the figure of a layman looking very like Cnut at the head of the procession of the saved in the upper left corner of folio 6v (fig. 18). Both he and the figure of the cleric to his left (abbot

65

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, pp. 31–2. Chapter xi of the New Minster Charter states: Scriptis decenter eorum in libro uite nominibus cum Christo portionem in celorum habitaculis habeant qui monachos suos quos nostris congregatos temporibus possidet uel uerbis . uel factis . sanctitatis studio honorauerint (‘Let those who shall have honoured either in words or in deeds, with devotion to holiness, His monks whom He possesses, collected as a flock in our times, have a share with Christ in the dwellings of Heaven, their names fitly having been written in the Book of Life’ [Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 85]). 66 See above, n. 16. 67 ‘The cross of Christ is the key of paradise, the cross of Christ opened paradise’ (Jerome, Homilia in Lucam Euangelistam (16, 19–31), ed. G. Morin, Anecdota Maredsolana, 3.2 [Maredsoli, 1897], p. 385).

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Ælfwine?) hold flowering palms crowned by trefoil blooms that give them something of the appearance of processional crosses.68 The key also symbolised Peter’s power to forgive or to condemn, and thus it is also paralleled by the sword that Cnut grasps in his left hand, a symbol of his authority and judgement as well as his military strength. As noted in the previous chapter, the connection between Christ, Peter and the Anglo-Saxon king was established in the prayer for the king’s investiture in the second coronation ordo with its imagery of key and sceptre. It was also stressed in the imagery of the Benedictional of Æthelwold in which Peter’s cross-key ‘represents the judicial power that the imperial victor Christ delegated to the apostles’.69 The Liber Vitae portrait serves to document the extension of that power from Christ to Peter to the king, just as did the portrait of Edgar in the New Minster Charter. Again the visual imagery can be paralleled in the text of the ordo, which made clear through his investiture with a sword that the king was to be the protector of his people.70 Certainly, the idea that the king protected his people was nothing new, but it is an aspect of kingship which Cnut chose to stress time and again in his laws, his letters and his actions; and, indeed, once he had gained the throne by force his reign was a period of peace and stability within England, something that stands out all the more clearly in comparison to the violence and turmoil of the eras which preceded and followed it. One of the most telling examples of the stability of Cnut’s power in England was his ability to make repeated trips abroad leaving the country in the protection and charge of his trusted earls.71 This is made clear in the preface to Cnut’s law code of 1018 which stresses both the establishment of a permanent peace between the Danes and the English, and the fact that the code was compiled by the king working under the advice of his councillors, who had vowed both to be loyal to God and king and to uphold the law throughout the land.72 The following year Cnut left for Denmark in order to secure his succession to the Danish throne after the death of his brother King Harold, leaving Earl Thorkell in charge of judicial matters in England. In his famous letter to the English of 1019–20, written during his sojourn in Denmark and preserved now in a copy entered at the end of the York Gospels (York, Chapter Library, MS Add. 1, fol. 160rv), Cnut assures his people that the reason for his absence is to insure their peace and security by removing a potential foreign threat and, further, to assure them that he had turned a possible enemy into a steadfast ally (chs. 4–6). That his duty to protect his people has been decreed by a higher authority is made clear not only by his swearing above all to uphold the laws of God (ch. 2), but also by his statement that he is acting in accordance with the wishes of the pope:

68 69 70 71 72

Deshman (Benedictional, p. 88) interprets the motif as symbolising the idea that the saved ‘flower like a palm’ on the day of judgement. Deshman, Benedictional, p. 208. See Lawson, Cnut, p. 131. See S. Keynes, ‘Cnut’s Earls’, in The Reign of Cnut, ed. A. Rumble (London, 1994), pp. 43–88. See below, p. 138.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut [2] & ic cyðe eow, þæt ic wylle beon hold hlaford & unswicende to Godes gerihtum & to rihtre woroldlage. [3] Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu & þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghwær Godes lof upp aræran & unriht alecgan & full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me God syllan wolde. [4] Nu ne wandode ic na minum sceattum, þa hwile þe eow unfrið on handa stod; nu ic mid Godes fultume þæt totwæmde mid minum scattum. [5] Þa cydde man me, þæt us mara hearm to fundode, þonne us wel licode; & þa for ic me sylf mid þam mannum þe me mid foron into Denmearcon, þe eow mæst hearm of com; & þæt hæbbe mid Godes fultume forene forfangen, þæt eow næfre heonon forð þanon nan unfrið to ne cymð, þa hwile þe ge me rihtlice healdað and min lif byð. [6] Nu ðancige ic Gode ælmihtigum his fultumes & his midlheortnesse, þæt ic þa myclan hearmes, þe us to fundedon, swa gelogod hæbbe, þæt we ne þurfon þanon nenes hearmes us asittan, ac us to fullan fultume & to ahreddingge, gyf us neod byð.73

Cnut’s skalds, writing most probably for an audience of Danes living in England, portrayed him as doing very much the same thing for Denmark and the Danes. They also drew similar parallels between God and Cnut as protectors of their respective heavenly and earthly realms.74 The letter to the English of 1019–20 also stipulates that defiance of God’s law, the authority of the king, or secular law, is to be punished with death or exile (ch. 9).75 This aspect of Cnut’s justice is aptly symbolised by the sword in the Liber Vitae portrait, a detail that was not part of the iconography of earlier Anglo-Saxon kingship, but which has parallels in images of Ottonian rulers, in the portraits of noble men on contemporary Anglo-Saxon secular seals,76 and also in the depiction of biblical figures in Anglo-Saxon art.77 It has also been hypothesised that the 73

74 75

76

77

Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 273; trans. EHD, p. 415: ‘2. And I inform you that I will be a gracious lord and a faithful observer of God’s rights and just secular law. 3. I have borne in mind the letters and messages which Archbishop Lifing brought me from Rome from the pope, that I should everywhere exalt God’s praise and suppress wrong and establish full security, by that power which it has pleased God to give me. 4. Since I did not spare my money as long as hostility was threatening you, I have now with God’s help put an end to it with my money. 5. Then I was informed that greater danger was approaching us than we liked at all, and then I went myself with the men who accompanied me to Denmark, from where the greatest injury had come to you, and with God’s help I have taken measures so that never henceforth shall hostility reach you from there as long as you support me rightly and my life lasts. 6. Now I thank Almighty God for his help and his mercy, that I have so settled the great dangers which were approaching us that we need fear no danger to us from there; but [we may reckon] on full help and deliverance, if we need it.’ See also S. Keynes, ‘The Additions in Old English’, in The York Gospels, ed. N. Barker (London, 1986), pp. 81–99. See R. Frank, ‘King Cnut in the Verse of his Skalds’, in Cnut, ed. Rumble, pp. 106–24; Lawson, Cnut, pp. 130 and 135. Gif hwa swa dyrstig sy, gehadod oððe læwede, Denisc oððe Englisc, þæt ongean Godes lage ga & ongean mine cynescype oððe ongean woroldriht, & nelle betan & geswican æfter minra biscopa tæcinge, þonne bidde ic Þurcyl eorl & eac beode, þæt he ðæne unrihtwisan to rihte gebige, gyf he mæge (Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 274). See, for example, the portrait of Henry II in majesty on fol. 193v of Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Ottob. Lat. 74, written and illuminated in Regensburg c. 1022. While Henry does not hold a sword, the figure in the roundel below him does, and looks to Henry for direction on whether to spare or execute the bound man before him. The scene is framed by personifications of Law and Justice in the lower corners of the border. See J. T. Wollesen, ‘A Pictorial Speculum Principis’, Word & Image 5.1 (1989), 85–110. For contemporary seals see below, n. 79. The seals are not precisely dated and are more obviously likely to have been influenced by the iconography of royal seals than to have had any influence on them. Pharoah is depicted enthroned with lily crown and lily-topped sceptre as he sentences his baker to be hanged on fol. 59 of the Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.iv).

135

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England seal of Edward the Confessor may have been based on a lost seal of King Cnut,78 although the nature of that ‘seal’ and even its very existence have been disputed.79 One side of the Confessor’s seal (fig. 23) shows him enthroned and holding a sword, and if it was indeed modelled on the seal of Cnut, it is reasonable to assume that the latter would have shown Cnut in a similar position. While the Liber Vitae portrait would have been seen only by those who celebrated mass within the New Minster, the seal would have been seen by a much wider audience, and the sword held by the king would have been understood throughout the kingdom and beyond as a symbol of the king’s authority and judgement. Needless to say, as the seal does not survive all such theories must remain in the realm of speculation. The concerns expressed by Cnut in his letter of 1019–20 are repeated in his letter of 1027, written whilst he was returning to England from Rome after attending the coronation of Conrad II, and in which, perhaps echoing the tone of the occasion as much as his own growing status, Cnut strikes a much more imperial note by identifying himself as king of all England, Denmark and Norway, and of parts of Sweden. The king goes on to pray pro redemptione peccaminum meorum et pro salute regnorum quique meo subiacent regimini populorum.80 Particularly relevant to the Liber Vitae portrait is Cnut’s statement that his journey was undertaken especially because of the example of St Peter: The date and provenance of the manuscript are uncertain, although it has generally been attributed to the eleventh century, or the ‘early’ eleventh century. On the date of the manuscript, see R. Barnhouse and B. C. Withers, ‘Introduction: Aspects and Approaches’, in The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches, ed. R. Barnhouse and B. C. Withers (Kalamazoo, MI, 2000), pp. 1–13, at 6. Helmut Gneuss (Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 [Tempe, AZ, 2001], no. 315) places it in the second quarter of the eleventh century, and indeed the similarities between the figure of Pharaoh and that of Edward as depicted on his seal might suggest a date towards the end of that period. 78 Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 17–18 and 99–101. Harmer (ibid., pp. 13 and 47) also notes that Æthelred II is said to have sent his gewrit and his insegel to the archbishop of Canterbury and a meeting of the shire court at Canterbury, although what form this seal took is unknown (cf. Keynes, Diplomas, p. 138). 79 For the argument against the existence of Cnut’s seal, see Heslop, ‘English Seals’, pp. 3, 10 and nn. 7 and 57; Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned’, pp. 60–1, nn. 73, 75 and 92. Bedos-Rezak does, however, suggest that documentary accounts of the ‘seals’ of Cnut and earlier Anglo-Saxon kings might refer to objects that were used only as a ‘means of closure, or parallel tokens of credence’, rather than to seals used as ‘a hanging and validating device’ (ibid., p. 60). It is quite possible that Cnut did possess such an object and that its iconography accorded with the literary descriptions. In any event, it is surely significant that it is Cnut, not Edward (pace Bedos-Rezak, p. 64), who is the first king of England to be depicted with a sword. Three surviving secular seals dated no more precisely than late tenth- or eleventh-century do survive. The double seal of Godwin and Gytha depicts God the Father and Christ enthroned on one side of the handle, with a portrait of Godwin holding a sword below; the seal dies of Wulfric and Ælfric also depict portraits of their owners holding upright swords. It has been suggested that they were influenced by the iconography of existing royal seals. See Golden Age, ed. Backhouse et al., cat. nos. 112 and 113; D. M. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100 in the British Museum (London, 1964), cat. no. 104. 80 Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 276 (see also ch. 13, p. 277); trans. EHD, p. 417: ‘for both the remission of my sins and for the safety of the kingdoms and the peoples which are subject to my rule’. The phrase also indicates that the kingdom, the land over which the king ruled, was now very definitely envisaged as something separate from the people who inhabited it. It is possible that, because he ruled over so many separate lands and peoples, and perhaps too because he was not of the Angelcynne, this difference was clearer to Cnut than it had been to earlier English kings.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Ob id ergo maxime hoc patraui, quia a sapientibus didici, sanctum Petrum apostolum magnam potestatem a Domino accepisse ligandi atque soluendi clauigerumque esse c”lestis regni, et ideo specialius eius patrocinium apud Deum diligenter expetere ualde utile duxi.81

By 1027, however, it was not enough just to attend to the security of his people at home, it was also necessary to secure the protection of any of his people – be they merchants or pilgrims – travelling across Europe to Rome, and to free them from the burdens of barriers and tolls (ch. 6). Also new is Cnut’s portrayal of himself as a major player on an international scale, reinforcing the imperial claims of the opening words of the letter: Cuncta enim que a domino papa et ab ipso imperatore et a rege Rodulfo ceterisque principibus, per quorum terras nobis transitus est ad Romam, pro mee gentis utilitate postulabam, libentissime annuerunt et concessa sacramento etiam firmauerunt sub testimento quattuor archiepiscoporum et uiginti episcoporum et innumere multitudinis ducum et nobilium, qui ibi aderant.82

The imperial tone that Cnut himself strikes in 1027 and the near certainty that he had seen the crown of Henry II above the altar in St Peter’s, as well as the imperial crown placed on the head of Conrad II at his coronation,83 support the idea that the arched crown of the Liber Vitae portrait is indeed intended to have imperial connotations.84 It should be born in mind, however, that the depiction of the coronation of the Virgin in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold (fol. 102v) also features an arched crown, the imperial associations of which, while possible, are far more tenuous.85 When the king is shown crowned on his coins he is shown with the same sort of lily crown that Edgar wears in the frontispiece to the New Minster Charter and never with an arched crown.86 It could of course be argued that the shape of the crown in the Liber Vitae portrait may be intended to differentiate it from the actual earthly crown worn by the king during his lifetime, and to suggest that this is the heavenly crown that the king would receive when he entered the kingdom of heaven. Such an interpretation would certainly explain the similarity in form between the crown given to Cnut in the Liber Vitae and the crown given to Mary at the moment of her death in the Benedictional. It would also establish the crown as a symbol of eternal victory parallel to the veil given to Ælfgifu. It should be noted however that both Edward the Confessor and Harold

81

82

83 84 85 86

Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, p. 276; trans. EHD, p. 417: ‘Especially have I accomplished this because I learned from wise men that the holy Apostle Peter had received from the Lord great power to bind and loose, and was the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and I considered it very profitable diligently to seek his special favour before God.’ Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, pp. 276–7; trans. EHD, p. 417: ‘Indeed, all the things which I demanded for the benefit of my people from the lord pope and from the emperor and from King Rodulf and the other princes through whose lands our way to Rome lies, they most willingly granted, and also confirmed what they had conceded with an oath, with the witness of four archbishops and twenty bishops and an innumerable multitude of dukes and nobles who were present.’ Schramm and Mütherich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser, I, 170 and 374–5. See above, n. 28. See also Golden Age, ed. Backhouse et al., p. 180; Gerchow, ‘Prayers for King Cnut’, pp. 226–8; Lawson, Cnut, p. 137; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, p. 38. On the possible sources of the miniature, see Deshman, Benedictional, pp. 125–7 and 136–8. See K. Jonsson, ‘The Coins of Cnut’, in Cnut, ed. Rumble, pp. 193–230.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Godwineson do appear with arched crowns on their coinage, so that the existence of such a crown in Cnut’s day cannot be ruled out altogether. As noted above, the general composition of the page with the king and his offering placed beneath the figure of Christ in majesty, and the emphasis on the parallel roles of Christ, St Peter and the earthly king, echoes that of the frontispiece to the New Minster Charter, and deliberately so. While Cnut established some sense of continuity between the reign of Æthelred and his own, most publicly perhaps by his marriage to Ælfgifu and the prominent voice of Wulfstan in his laws,87 it was as successor to Edgar that Cnut chose to portray himself for obvious reasons. On a material level, Cnut’s patronage of West Saxon royal saints like Edith of Wilton, and his patronage of traditional West Saxon foundations like the New Minster, helped to strengthen his links with his predecessors, especially Edgar.88 It is in his laws, however, that the bond with Edgar is expressed most clearly. The 1018 law code, agreed upon at Oxford shortly after Cnut came to power, combines elements of both Æthelred’s laws (especially V and VI Æthelred) with those of Edgar (especially III Edgar), but was perhaps more noteworthy for its symbolic reference back to the reign of Edgar than for its use of Edgar’s actual legislation.89 Edgar’s reign had come to be viewed as a golden age of peace, a view that no doubt gained lustre by comparison with the reign of his son Æthelred, and it was for this reason that it became such an important touchstone in the early years of Cnut’s reign. The D text of the Chronicle records that in 1018 the Danes and the English wurdon sammæle æt Oxanaforda to Eadgares lage.90 The text of the law code, which survives only in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 201,91 opens with a statement to the effect that while the code is based on many precedents, it is the laws of Edgar that are most crucial – no matter what the sources of the individual chapters. It also stresses peace, reconciliation and loyalty to the king and to God, as well as to the law: IN NOMINE DOMINI Ðis is seo gerædnes þe witan geræddon . & be manegum godum bisnum . asmeadon . And þæt was geworden sona swa cnút cynge . mid his witena geþeahte . frið & freondscipe . betweox denum & englum . fullice gefæstnode . & heora ærran saca . ealle getwæmde. [1] Þonne is þæt ærest þæt witan geræddan . þæt hi ofer ealle oðre þingc anne god æfre worðodon . & ænne cristendom anrædlice healdan . & cnut cyngc . lufian . mid rihtan . & mid trywðan . & eadgares lagan . geornlice folgian.92

87 88 89 90 91 92

On the latter see Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 346 and 353. Rollason, Saints and Relics, pp. 140, 157–8. See also D. W. Rollason, ‘Relic-cults as an Instrument of Royal Policy c. 900–1050’, ASE 15 (1986), 91–103. A point noted by both Simon Keynes (‘The Æthelings in Normandy’, Anglo-Norman Studies 13 [1990], 173–205, at 173) and Patrick Wormald (Making of English Law, pp. 131–2 and 346–7). ‘were united at Oxford according to Edgar’s law’. See D. Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut’, EHR 63 (1948), 433–52; A. G. Kennedy, ‘Cnut’s Law Code of 1018’, ASE 11 (1983), 57–81; P. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 131–3. Kennedy, ‘Cnut’s Law Code’, p. 72. ‘In the name of God. This is the ordinance which the councillors determined and devised according to many good precedents. And that took place as soon as King Cnut, with the advice of his councillors, fully established peace and friendship between the Danes and the English, and put an end to all their former enmity. [1] In the first place, the councillors decreed that, above all other things, they would always honour one God and singlemindedly hold one Christian faith, and love King Cnut with due loyalty, and zealously observe the laws of Edgar’ (trans. Kennedy).

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut The exact same features of Cnut’s rule are of course echoed in the letter of 1019/20 cited above. The law code issued from Winchester at Christmas 1020 or 1021 was a compilation of the major legislative statements of Cnut’s predecessors from Æthelberht to Æthelred.93 It was also, according to Patrick Wormald, ‘among the most sophisticated legislative statements of post-Roman Europe’,94 its scale and scope perhaps reflecting Cnut’s growing imperial aspirations, and possibly intended to demonstrate that the king also wanted to have himself portrayed as part of an Anglo-Saxon dynasty of rulers. Certainly both aspects of his rule are present in the Liber Vitae portrait, which gives him pride of place as the first of the kings of England to be commemorated; yet in doing so relies visually on established imperial models. In this respect the sword is a doubly appropriate symbol for Cnut. Michelle Warren has explored the way in which swords ‘incarnate the boundary paradox’;95 that is, in their shape and in their function they simultaneously divide and unify. (Keys, of course, might be said to do the same thing, though perhaps in a less violent manner.) Cnut had temporarily brought peace and unity to a country which had undergone repeated fragmentation and unification, and had, moreover, incorporated it into a larger imperial, albeit ephemeral, whole; on the other hand, he had conquered England by the sword, and the sword must also have been a potent reminder of his status as a foreign invader. It was certainly as a warrior descendent of Ívarr, the Viking king of York, and thus as an outsider with a ‘legitimate’ claim to the land, that the skaldic poets portrayed Cnut. In his Knútsdrápa the skald Hallvarðr wrote: 1. Vestr lézt í haf, hristir, hardviggs, sikulgjarðar, umbands allra landa, íss, framstafni vísat. 2. Knútr, lézt framm til Fljóta – frægr leið v›rðr of ægi, heiptsnarr, hildar leiptra – harðbrynjuð skip dynja. Ullar, lézt við Ellu ættleifð, ok mó reifðir sverðmans, snyrtiherðir sundviggs, flota bundit.96

On a theoretical level it is entirely appropriate then that Cnut’s sword be shown violating the borders of the page in the Liber Vitae portrait, just as it had violated and broken down the boundaries of the kingdom. On a purely visual level, the 93 94 95 96

See Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 355–61. Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 365. Warren, History on the Edge. The quote is from p. 17. ‘[1] Shaker of the sword-belt’s ice [sword], you let the prow of the tough steed [ship] of the girdle of all lands [ocean] turn west into the sea. [2] Cnut, you let the hard-byrnied ships resound forward to Fljót; the famous guardian of the lightnings of battle [swords] sailed, battle-bold, over the sea. Noble strengthener of the sea-horse [ship] of Ullr [shield], you bound your fleet to Ælla’s family-inheritance [England], and rejoiced the seagull of the valcyrie [raven].’ Quoted and translated in Frank, ‘King Cnut in the Verse of his Skalds’, pp. 119–20; see also pp. 110–12.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England way in which the sword violates the border helps to break down the boundaries between the contemporary Winchester setting of the donor portrait and the future heavenly setting of the Last Judgement sequence that follows. The Last Judgement sequence The portrait of Ælfgifu and Cnut must also be understood in the context of the double-page illustration of the Last Judgement which follows it. The contemporary figures of the queen, king and monks on folio 6r stand in readiness to form part of the future procession of the saved into heaven depicted on the verso of the same page. In this instance it is the figure of the king that takes precedence over that of the queen, visually leading our eyes from the scene of donation on the one page to the depiction of the saved on the next, and this is emphasised by the fact that the group at the upper left of folio 6v is led by an abbot and an aristocratic lay figure dressed very like Cnut. It is possible, as suggested above, that the two may have been intended to represent the king and abbot Ælfwine, though of course we cannot be certain on this point. It is equally possible that they are simply anonymous representations of the men and women of the nobility and the church whose names are listed in the manuscript. Whatever the case, the inscription +Ælgarus added by a later hand beside the two figures at the centre of the page indicates that someone within the Winchester community believed that at least some of the figures were intended to represent specific individuals. The fact that the drawing on this page has no boundaries on the other hand, suggests that the place in which the figures stand literally hovers somewhere outside of earthly time and space. These are the saved moving from this world to the next, having left one realm of existence but not quite reached the other. Any consideration of the Liber Vitae drawings must make note of the fact that they comprise the only surviving narrative representation of the Last Judgement in all of Anglo-Saxon art. Other images commonly identified as Last Judgements, such as the portrait of John the evangelist on folio 114v of the c. 1020 Grimbald Gospels (London, British Library, MS Additional 34890), or the tenth- or eleventh-century ivory panel now in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, are more correctly interpreted as scenes of the blessed ascending into heaven or adoring Christ, as they include neither hell and the devil nor the actual moment of judgement.97 A possible exception is provided by the ninth-century Rothbury cross, on which figures at the top and bottom of the shaft are likely to represent the inhabitants of the kingdoms of heaven and hell.98 Unfortunately

97

See J. O’Reilly, ‘Early Medieval Text and Image: The Wounded and Exalted Christ’, Peritia 6–7 (1987–88), 72–118. The ivory panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. 253–1867) showing the angel waking the dead has been interpreted variously as Carolingian or Anglo-Saxon, but it is generally accepted as Carolingian. See A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sachsischen Kaiser, VIII–XI Jahrhundert, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1975), cat. no. 178; but see also J. Beckwith, Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England (London, 1972), cat. no. 4; P. Michelli, ‘Beckwith Revisited: Some Ivory Carvings from Canterbury’, in Anglo-Saxon Styles, ed. C. E. Karkov and G. H. Brown (Albany, NY, 2003), pp. 101–13. 98 See J. Hawkes, ‘The Rothbury Cross: An Iconographic Bricolage’, Gesta 35.1 (1996), 77–94.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut only fragments of the cross survive and we cannot be sure of its iconographic programme. The relevance of the Last Judgement drawings to the function of the Liber Vitae is clear enough: they represent the salvation of those for whom the Winchester community prayed. What motivated abbot Ælfwine to include them in the manuscript, and what the source of their design might have been are more complicated matters. I have argued elsewhere that one likely source for the Liber Vitae drawings may have been the famous six-storey tower added to the New Minster under the patronage of Æthelred II in the 980s.99 As a point of entrance, the location of the tower in relation to the church would have paralleled the location of the illustrations in relation to the text of the manuscript; indeed, the tract on the early history of the New Minster, the very first text in the manuscript, ends with an account of the building of this same tower. According to this account the six storeys of the tower were dedicated in ascending order to Mary and her virgins, the Holy Trinity, the Holy Cross, All Saints, the archangel Michael and the heavenly powers, and the four evangelists.100 A direct historical connection between the tower and the drawings is suggested by the identification of the bishop on folio 6v as Æthelgar, abbot of the New Minster (964–88) at the time the tower was built, and subsequently bishop of Selsey (980–88) and archbishop of Canterbury (988–90). A formal connection is suggested by the division of the pages into registers which echo, but certainly do not copy exactly, the division of the tower into storeys. Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle has reconstructed the tower with carvings of the saint(s) to whom the separate storeys were dedicated at each level,101 while Barbara Raw has discussed the meaning of the iconography of the tower at some length. According to Raw: The ground floor was appropriately dedicated to Mary because she was the source of Christ’s human nature . . . The carving of the Trinity, placed above that of Mary, showed Christ’s divine origin; the carving of the cross recalled the redemption which came through his incarnation, made possible by the assent of the human mother. The carving of all saints portrayed those people redeemed by Christ who had already reached their home in heaven; that of St Michael and all angels reminded the viewer of the powerful forces who protected him. Finally the figures of the four evangelists symbolized the spreading of the message of redemption throughout the world.102

While it is by no means clear that the different levels of the tower were in fact decorated with sculpture,103 Raw’s’ analysis is equally valid when applied to the iconography of the architectural spaces alone. Raw focuses on the christological symbolism and redemptive message of the tower’s iconographic programme and 99

100

101 102 103

C. E. Karkov, ‘Judgement and Salvation in the New Minster Liber Vitae’, in Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. K. Powell and D. G. Scragg (Manchester and Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 151–63. R. N. Quirk, ‘Winchester New Minster and its Tenth-Century Tower’, Jnl of the British Archaeological Association 3rd ser. 24 (1966), 16–54; B. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Old Minster, St Swithun’s Day 1093’, in Winchester Cathedral: Nine Hundred Years 1093–1993, ed. J. Crook (Chichester, 1993), pp. 13–20. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Old Minster’, p. 15. Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography, pp. 20–1. Richard Gem, ‘Towards an Iconography of Anglo-Saxon Architecture’, Jnl of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983), 1–18.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England stresses its iconic rather than narrative nature, but read together the storeys suggest a heavenly court and a chronological narrative that runs from the incarnation to the Last Judgement, the latter event signified by the presence of Michael and the symbols of the four evangelists – the four beasts that surround the throne at the opening of Revelation. One also assumes that as the New Minster was dedicated jointly to the Trinity, Mary and Peter, Peter would have been prominent amongst the saints of the fourth storey – though again we cannot be certain of this. Admittedly, the tower does not provide an exact match for the Liber Vitae drawings, but it is unlikely that anyone in the Winchester community would have been unaware of the way in which the pages with the procession of the saved would have referenced their own entrance into the church, passed the tower and towards the altar on which the book would have been displayed. The idea of the Last Judgement implicit in the tower of the church, God’s kingdom on earth, would have been fulfilled in the imagery of the book showing the final entrance of the community into heaven. The importance of the book in the process of judgement is visualised in the middle register of folio 7r. Here, Peter and a small boy who represents a soul in the process of being saved, are framed by a book-holding devil and a book-holding angel, most likely the archangel Michael whose presence at the Last Judgement was well-established, and who appears again in the lower register. The way in which Peter and the devil each grasp one of the child’s hands indicates that they are vying for possession of his soul, while the blank books reinforce the idea that final judgement has not yet been written. On the other hand, the way in which Peter wields his key as a weapon against the devil, and the fact that the child looks toward him, suggest that this soul will ultimately be saved.104 The overall composition of this register neatly portrays the division of the saved from the damned, with Peter and the boy standing to the right of Christ (who sits within the kingdom of heaven in the upper register), turning toward the procession of the saved on the facing page, and arranged so that their bodies move in an upward angle, and the two damned souls clutched by a winged demon standing to Christ’s left and gazing downwards toward with mouth of hell into which they will soon be cast. The fact that Peter’s key becomes a weapon in the battle for the human soul underscores its association with the sword of Cnut. Within the context of these illustrations it is clear, perhaps far more clear than in the case of the sword, that the key is double-sided: it can both save and damn, unite and divide. In the central register, in the exact middle of the page, it violently separates the saved from the damned. In the upper register it unlocks the gates of heaven, uniting the 104

It is unlikely that this part of the drawing represents a specific miracle (as suggested by M. J. Mora, ‘The Power of the Keys: A Parallel to the Line Drawings in BL MS Stowe 944’, Selim 3 [1993], 57–71; see also D. F. Johnson, ‘A Scene of Post-mortem Judgement in the New Minster Liber Vitae’, Old English Newsletter 34.1 [Fall 2000], 24–30), as depicting innocent souls as children was extremely common throughout the Middle Ages. See, for example, the depiction of souls as swaddled infants in the scenes of the harrowing of hell and the handing over of the soul of the Virgin on the late eighth-century Wirksworth slab, originally the lid of a sarcophagus. See further J. Hawkes, ‘The Wirksworth Slab: An Iconography of Humilitas’, Peritia 9 (1995), 246–89, esp. figs. 7 and 8.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Winchester community and their special dead with their longed for home in heaven. In the lower register the archangel Michael locks the gates of hell with two keys, perhaps the double-edged key of Peter itself divided. In this case the key, again like the sword, condemns and enforces boundaries by forever trapping the damned within hell. Yet in the very act of locking the door, Michael and his key indicate that this was up until the final moment a boundary capable of being crossed. In fact, the way in which the wings of the angels and the right hand of Peter reach across the left border of folio 7r help to confirm that both heaven and hell are attainable by men and women on earth until the moment at which the door to each kingdom is closed for the final time. As far as the Winchester community, and the queen and king were concerned it was this book that would help them to reach the one and avoid the other. In so doing, the book served a function not unrelated to that of Cnut’s sword or Peter’s key: it was a protective (or defensive) object for use in the battle for future salvation. The two clerics who stand, books and cross in hand, observing the battle taking place across the division of folios 6v and 7r drive home this point in no uncertain terms. The book itself already represents a community united in their desire to reach the kingdom of heaven through their faith, their gifts, and the written word. The place of the portrait within the manuscript Admittedly the New Minster Liber Vitae survives in a fragmentary state, and the original order of the texts after folio 28 is uncertain;105 nevertheless, the way in which the frontispiece and the Last Judgement opening relate thematically to what survives of the original contents is clear enough. The three drawings are followed by an account of the early history of the New Minster that runs from the death of King Alfred to the dedication of the six-storey tower constructed during the reign of Æthelred II and dedicated by Archbishop Dunstan on 7 July 980–987.106 The history focuses on those members of the West Saxon royal family who were buried in the New Minster or contributed to it in some significant way, their names being picked out in capital letters. It also makes clear that their memories were honoured and their names recited daily during the celebration of the mass (fol. 8r), the focal point of which was naturally the high altar depicted in the frontispiece flanked by the names and images of the queen and king. The history ends with a prayer to the dead who have gone on into the kingdom of heaven, requesting that they may intercede on behalf of those who honour their memory, and picking up on the theme of intercession and judgement introduced in the opening sequence of drawings. The history is a record of the past, and while it culminates in an account of Æthelred and his patronage, it is going too far to claim that it ‘leaves Æthelred in his enviable position as the New

105

See Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, pp. 79–110 for a detailed discussion of the individual articles that comprise the manuscript. 106 Notes on the history of Winchester between 1060 and the 1140s were added in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century on the originally blank fol. 7v, and at least one additional leaf was inserted between fols. 7 and 8 at this time.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Minster’s most honoured benefactor’;107 it is Ælfgifu and Cnut whose names and images open the book, and who thus clearly supplant Æthelred in the place of honour. It should also be noted that it is Alfred and Edward the Elder, not Æthelred, who are accorded special treatment in the list of West Saxon kings to be commemorated on folio 14r. After Alfred’s name the scribe draws attention to the fact that he is buried in the New Minster, while after Edward’s name he writes: Primo omnium in fundamento operis huius nomen gloriosi regis et fundatoris monasterii huius . edweardi magni filii aelfredi . h”c deinde ceterorum sequentium . regum huius loci amicorum et protectorum.108

The portrait of Cnut with his sword at the ready places him at the head of the minster’s protectors. The preface to the Liber Vitae proper (that is to the lists of names of those to be commemorated) on folio 13rv brings us back to the present time in which the manuscript was begun. As noted above, the preface stipulates that the names of those to be honoured are recorded in their appropriate order, but it also makes explicit the relationship between the earthly Liber Vitae and the heavenly Book of Judgement implicit in the frontispiece, noting that ut per temporalem recordationem scriptur” istius in c”lestis libri conscribantur pagina.109 It then continues with an explanation of how the book was to be used by the New Minster community: Et omnium qui se eius orationibus ac fraternitati commendant hic generaliter habeantur inscripta. Quatinus cotidie in sacris missarum celebrationibus vel psalmodiarum concentibus eorum commemoratio fiat. Et ipsa nomina per singulos dies a subdiacono ante sanctum altare ad matutinalem seu principalem missam pr”sunter et ab ipso prout tempus permiserit in conspectu altissimi recitentur. Postque oblatam Deo oblationem dextra manu cardinalis qui missam celebrat sacerdotis inter ipse sacr” miss” mysteria supra sanctum altare posita. Omnipotenti Deo humillime commendentur, quo sicut eorum memoria agitur in terris, ita in illa uita ipso largiente qui solus qualiter ibi omnes aut sunt aut futuri sunt nouit, eorum qui maiores meriti sunt gloria cumuleter in c”lis, eorum uero qui minoris sunt in occultis ipsius causa leuigeter iudiciis. Gaudete et exultate quia nomina uestra scripta sunt in c”lis.110 107

W. de Gray Birch, ed., Liber Vitae: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester (London, 1892), p. 13; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, trans. p. 82. 108 ‘In first place above all others in the instigation of this work (is) the name of the glorious king and founder of this monastery – the great Edward, son of Alfred; and then these (names) of other succeeding kings – friends and protectors of this place’ (Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, trans. p. 83). 109 Birch, Liber Vitae, pp. 11–12; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, trans. p. 83: ‘by the making of a record on earth in this written form, they [the names of those commemorated] may be inscribed on the pages of the heavenly book’. 110 Birch, Liber Vitae, p. 12; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, trans. p. 83: ‘And may the names be entered here of all those who commend themselves to its prayers and fraternity, in the holy solemnities of Mass or in the harmonies of psalmody. And may the names themselves be presented by the sub-deacon every day before the holy altar at the Morrow or principal Mass, and may they be read out by him in the sight of the Most High, as time permits. And, after the offering of the oblation to God, placed on the holy altar at the right hand of the principal priest who is celebrating Mass, during the mysteries of the sacred Mass, may they be most humbly commended to Almighty God. So that just as commemoration of them is made on earth, so too in that life, by the bounty of Him who alone knows how all are, or are to be, there, may the glory be augmented of those who are of greater merit in heaven, and may the cause be smoothed, in the hidden judgements, of those who are of lesser merit. Rejoice and be glad because your names are written in heaven.’

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Then follow the lists of men and women to be commemorated, several of which have been updated to various points beyond the Anglo-Saxon period. The Liber Vitae also locates the origins of the New Minster firmly within the origins and history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and the Anglo-Saxon church via the will of King Alfred (fols. 29v–33r) and the two tracts on the resting places of the saints in England; the first detailing the founding of the English church with the coming of Augustine, and proceeding to list the royal saints of Kent (fols. 34v–36v), and the second extending out to include saints resting elsewhere in the kingdom (fols. 36v–39). The list of saints is followed by the West Saxon regnal list beginning with Ine and ending with Cnut (fol. 39rv). In all these texts names matter, they are crucial to both the location of origins (whether factual or fictitious) and the historical continuum that linked the community in 1031 to the past communities of both church and court. These tracts provide history measured by the people who lived and created it; a second set of texts on folios 33r to 34r provides a parallel reading of history as time and measurement, God’s eternal plan, into which fit the names that now precede and follow it.111 They consist of a tract on the Six Ages of the world, with the Sixth Age extending to the end of the world, the moment pictured in the Last Judgement sequence at the beginning of the manuscript; the number of years from the Creation to the Nativity; the number of years from the Creation to Christ’s Passion; the number of years of Christ’s life; the number of days from Christ’s Baptism to his Passion; the age of Mary at the time of Christ’s death and the number of years that she was with him in the world. The other texts which were part of the original core of the Liber Vitae relate to its liturgical use and its monastic audience. They include a fragment of a gospel lectionary (fols. 42r–49v and 41rv), with coverage restricted to the major temporal feasts ‘perhaps signifying that only on those days would the “Liber Vitae” have been intended to serve as a lectionary’,112 a series of blessings (fols. 50r–54v), an incomplete list of the names of Old and New Testament saints in heaven (fol. 56rv), the end of a charter relating to the foundation of the New Minster (S 1443; fol. 57rv), a colloquy between Pope Damasus and St James on the correct time of day for celebrating mass (fols. 59v–60r), four liturgical texts (the Angelic Hymn, Lord’s Prayer, Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed; fols. 34r–37r), and a colloquy on the number of languages of the world (fol. 61v). The Liber Vitae is then an assemblage of originally unrelated texts that have been brought together to suggest a unified whole. Within the manuscript, time is measured in both concrete human terms and abstract temporal terms; church and state, past and present, are brought into harmony with each other, and with the divine; Latin and Old English sit side by side; and the lists of those to be remembered write a community out of disparate sets of individual names. The donor portrait of Ælfgifu and Cnut is in many ways a microcosm of the book itself with its combination of languages, church and court, gift and reward, present and future time, the here-and-now of the New Minster and the eternity of heaven. 111 112

As Keynes notes (Liber Vitae, p. 70), the original order of these texts is not clear. Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, p. 103.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England EMMA AND THE ENCOMIUM EMMAE REGINAE

The Liber Vitae was made primarily for an ecclesiastical audience, and its frontispiece portrayed the qeen and king acting in partnership and as part of the New Minster community; the Encomium Emmae, on the other hand, was made for a secular court audience, and its frontispiece portrays the queen as the embodiment of secular power and acting in her own right (fig. 21). While the Liber Vitae portrait combined the traditional iconography of royal patronage with Marian imagery to present us with a portrait of Ælfgifu pious queen, the dedication page of the Encomium Emmae combines the traditional iconography of imperial male power with maternal Marian imagery to create an unprecedented portrait of Emma queen and mother. Again, names are an important part of the manuscript. This book was produced for the queen in 1041–2, probably by a monk at or from the monastery of Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer Flanders.113 The names of Emma, Cnut and their sons are capitalised or picked out in half uncials throughout the text.114 They call attention not only to Emma’s role as wife and mother, but also to the fact that the book is as much about names and memory as is the Liber Vitae. Emma’s position after Cnut’s death rested in good part on the memory of his reign, and it was vital to her interests in 1041–42 that it be presented as a golden age. The Encomium masquerades as being more about Cnut and his noble ancestors than about Emma, but it does so, as the Encomiast notes, on sound Roman precedent, a precedent which helps to highlight the imperial stance here adopted by Emma.115 In this respect it might be usefully compared with Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s De moribus et acti primorum Normanniae Ducum,116 the collection of historic tales composed for the court of Emma’s father and for which her mother the countess Gunnor is thought to have served as an important informant.117 The core of the book consists of a lengthy account of the glorious deeds of

113

114

115

116 117

As Simon Keynes has noted (Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. xliv–xlv and lxix), the possibility that the manuscript was written in England by a monk from Flanders should not be ruled out. But see also R. Gameson, ‘L’Angleterre et la Flandre aux xe et xie siècles: le témoignage des manuscrits’, Les Échanges culturels au moyen âge, Congrès des médiévistes de l’enseignement supérieur (Paris, 2002), 165–89, at 175 and 183. Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 38, suggests that this indicates that the manuscript was intended for Emma herself, but this need not necessarily be the case. It is more likely that the manuscript was made under Emma’s direction for an audience at Harthacnut’s court (see below). ‘Aeneida conscriptam a Uirgilio quis poterit infitiari ubique laudibus respondere Octouiani, cum pene nihil aut plane parum eius mentio uideatur nominatim interseri?’ (‘Who can deny that the Aeneid, written by Virgil, is everywhere devoted to the praises of Octavian, although practically no mention of him by name, or clearly very little, is seen to be introduced?’), Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 6–7. Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De Moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini Decano, ed. J. Lair (Caen, 1865); Christiansen, Dudo of St Quentin. Searle, Predatory Kinship, pp. 63–7; E. van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe 900–1200 (Toronto, 1999), p. 72. Dudo’s work also borrows from the style and writings of Virgil: see most notabley P. Bouet, ‘Dudon de S. Quentin et Virgile’, Recueil d’études en homage à Musset, Cahiers des Annales de Normandie xxiii (Caen, 1990).

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Cnut, his abilities as a politician,118 and the peace and prosperity that England enjoyed while he was king, followed by a lamentation for the political turmoil and violence that arose after his death. The Encomiast assures us in the original ending of the book that Cnut had been succeeded at long last by the triumvirate of Emma, Harthacnut and Edward, and that peace had been restored. An alternative ending was added to the end of the narrative, probably by the Encomiast himself, after the death of Harthacnut: Qui fratris iussioni obaudiens Anglicas partes aduehitur, et mater amboque filii regni paratis commodis nulla lite intercedente utuntur. His itaque fratribus concorditer regnantibus mors media intercidit et regem Hardechnutonem uitalibus auris abstulit. Regem mater et frater maximo cum luctu honorifice sepeliunt. Mortuo Ardechnutone in regnum successit Edwardus, heres scilicet legitimus, uir uirium eminentia conspicuus, uirtute animi consiliique atque etiam ingenii uiuacitate preditus, et, ut omnia breuiter concludam, omnium expetendorum summa insignitus.119

The conclusion of the text, whether original or alternative, is about continuity and succession, and one wonders why under these circumstances the official name Ælfgifu, the name that would have emphasised both continuity and Englishness was not used. Campbell believed that because the manuscript was produced in Flanders it was intended for a foreign audience to whom the name Ælfgifu would have been meaningless.120 Simon Keynes points out that whether written in Flanders or England the multilingual court of Harthacnut, which included Emma, would have comprised a much more likely audience.121 Given the highly political nature of the text, and its blatant efforts to create an image of peace and prosperity under Emma and her sons, not to mention harmony between half-brothers, an English audience for whom these things mattered would certainly make the most sense. Emma’s role as mother is crucial to both the text and the frontispiece of the Encomium, and as her private name would presumably have been the one by which her sons knew her, it may well have been used as a means of emphasising her desire to be seen as a dutiful and devoted mother. Its use might also have served to distance the queen from Ælfgifu of Northampton, Cnut’s first wife, and their son Harold Harefoot. After the death of Cnut in 1035 Emma and Harthacnut were caught up in a struggle for the throne with Ælfgifu and Harold, and it was only with Harold’s death in 1040 that Harthacnut succeeded to the rule of an undivided England. It is no doubt significant in this 118

Emma’s father, Richard I, had been similarly praised by Dudo of Saint-Quentin (Searle, Predatory Kinship, pp. 78, 138). 119 ‘Obeying his brother’s command, [Edward] was conveyed to England, and the mother and both sons, having no disagreement between them, enjoy the ready amenities of the kingdom. While the two brothers were thus reigning in concord, death came between them and deprived King Harthacnut of his vital breath. The mother and the brother bury the king honourably, with very great sorrow. After Harthacnut’s death, Edward, who was the legitimate heir, succeeded to the kingdom: a man conspicuous for the eminence of his strength, endowed with vigour of mind and purpose, and also with tenacity of character, and – if I may draw briefly to a close – possessed with the best of all desirable qualities’ (quoted and trans. in Orchard, ‘Encomium Emmae Reginae’, p. 167). See also Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. xcvii–xcix, and 52. 120 See Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, Appendix I, p. 57, for the use of the name ‘Emma’ in continental and Scandinavian sources. 121 Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. lix.

147

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England regard that while deriding Ælfgifu of Northampton at some length, the Encomiast nowhere mentions her name. Harold’s legitimacy was a central issue in the controversy over the succession. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1035 states that Ælfgyfu seo hlæfdie sæt þa ðær binnan & Harold – þe sæde þæt he Cnutes sunu wære & þær oðre Ælfgyfe, þeh hit na soð nære – he sende to & let niman of hyre ealle þa betstan gærsuma, ðe heo ofhealdan ne mihte, þe Cnut cing ahte.122

The Chronicle entry states simply that Harold’s claim to be the son of Cnut and Ælfgifu of Northampton (the ‘other Ælfgifu’) was not to be believed. The implication is clearly that Cnut was not Harold’s father, but the wording also leaves open the possibility that Ælfgifu of Northampton was not really his mother. There were rumours that Harold was of low birth, the son of a servant, who Ælfgifu of Northampton had stolen and placed in her own bed in order to provide Cnut with a son and heir, thereby securing her own position via his rise to power. The idea that Ælfgifu of Northampton was a fallen mother implicit in the Chronicle entry is stated explicitly in the Encomium: Unde factum est, ut quidam Anglorum pietatem regis sui iam defuncti obliti mallent regnum suum dedecorare quam ornare, relinquentes nobiles filios insignis reginae Emmae et eligentes sibi in regem quendam Haroldum, quem esse filium falsa aestimatione asseritur cuiusdam eiusdem regis Cnutonis concubinae; plurimorum uero assertio eundem Haroldum perhibet furtim fuisse subreptum parturienti ancillae, inpositum autem camerae languentis con(n)cubinae, quod ueratius credi potest.123

Emma’s need to be portrayed as the legitimate queen and mother of the legitimate king may have been magnified by questions concerning her own position as wife and mother. In 1036 the æthelings Alfred and Edward had sailed to England in response to a letter pleading for their return, which may or may not have been written by Emma. According to the Encomiast, the letter was forged by the ‘usurper’ Harold and his companions. The text of the letter, like that of the Encomium in general, portrays Emma as a deeply caring mother. It both opens and closes with an emotional appeal and a picture of a united family: Emma tantum nomine regina filiis Aeduardo et Alfrido materna impertit salutamina. Dum domini nostri regis obitum separatim plangimus filii karissimi . . . Ualete, cordis mei uiscera.124 122

MS C, ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe: ‘Ælfgifu the Lady remained there (Winchester) and Harold – it was said that he was the son of Cnut and the other Ælfgifu, though it was not true – sent there and had taken from her all the best treasures that Cnut had owned, which she could not keep (from him).’ See also MSS D and E. In MS C Imme has been written above the queen’s name as if to dispel any confusion as to which Ælfgifu the chronicler was referring. 123 Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 38–41: ‘And so it came to pass that certain Englishmen, forgetting the piety of their lately deceased king, preferred to dishonour their country than to ornament it, and deserted the noble sons of the excellent Queen Emma, choosing as their king one Haraldr, who is declared owing to a false estimation of the matter, to be a son of a certain concubine of the above mentioned King Knútr; as a matter of fact, the assertion of very many people has it that the same Haraldr was secretly taken from a servant who was in childbed, and put in the chamber of the concubine who was indisposed; and this can be believed as the more truthful account.’ 124 Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 40–3: ‘Emma, queen in name only, imparts motherly salutation to her sons, Edweard and Ælfred. Since we severally lament the death of our lord, the king, most dear sons . . . Farewell, beloved ones of my heart [or ‘womb’].’

148

Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut The term ‘viscera’ with which the letter ends can mean either heart or womb, and nicely combines the idea of motherhood as a biological and emotional state, its ambivalence perhaps designed to appeal to a pair of sons who must certainly have entertained doubts as to the depth of their mother’s emotional concern for their well being. There is of course no reason to assume that the letter quoted in the Encomium bears any resemblance to the letter sent to the æthelings, and within the context of the manuscript the use of the word ‘viscera’ helps to further the distinction between Emma and Ælfgifu of Northampton as legitimate mothers of legitimate and throne-worthy sons. Emma’s sons are beloved of her womb as well as her heart because she actually bore them, in contrast to Ælfgifu of Northampton who only claimed to have borne Harold. The Encomiast goes on to relate the story of how, whilst in the custody of Earl Godwine, one of Emma and Harthacnut’s staunchest allies, Alfred was blinded and left to die at Ely. The specific actions and motives of all the major players in the events of 1036–7 remain something of a mystery.125 According to the Chronicle entry for 1036: Her com Ælfred se unsceððiga æþeling Æþelrædes sunu cinges hider inn & wolde to his meder þe on Wincestre sæt, ac hit him ne geþafode Godwine eorl ne ec oþre me þe mycel mihton wealdan, forðan hit hleoðrode þa swiðe toward Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære. Ac Godwine hine þa gelette & hine on hæft sette & his geferan he todraf & sume mislice ofsloh. Sume hi man wið feo sealde, sume hreowlice acwealde, sume hi man bende, sume hi man blende sume hamelode, sume hættode. Ne wearð dreorlicre dæd gedon on þison earde syþþan Dene comon & her frið namon. Nu is to gelyfenne to ðan leofan Gode þæt hi blission bliðe mid Criste þe wæron butan scylde swa earmlice acwealde. Se æþeling lyfode þa gyt; ælc yfel man him gehet, oð þæt man gerædde þæt man hine lædde to Eligbyrig swa gebundenne. Sona swa he lende on scype man hine blende & hine swa blindne brohte to ðam munecon, & he þar wunode ða hwile þe he lyfode. Syððan hine man byrigde swa him wel gebyrede, ful wurðlice, swa he wyrðe wæs, æt þam westende þam styple ful gehende, on þam suðpotice; seo saul is mid Criste.126 125 126

See most recently Stafford, Emma and Edith, pp. 239–41. MS C, ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe. ‘In this year Alfred the innocent ætheling, the son of King Æthelred, came into this country, wishing to go to his mother who was settled in Winchester, but Earl Godwine would not allow him, nor would the other men who wielded great power, because feeling was very much towards Harold, although this was not right. ‘But Godwine then stopped him and put him in fetters, and drove away his companions and slew some in various ways; some were sold for money, some were cruelly murdered, some were put in fetters, some were blinded, some were hamstrung, some were scalped. No more horrible deed was done in this land since the Danes came and peace was made here. Now we must trust to the beloved God that they rejoice happily with Christ those who without guilt were so miserably killed. The ætheling still lived. He was threatened with every evil, until it was decided that he would be led thus in

149

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Whatever Emma’s complicity or lack of it in the actual crime, the Chronicle places the blame squarely on Godwine (MS C) or on Harold and ‘others’ (MS D). The Chronicle poem focuses our attention on the violence and horrific nature of the crime and the innocence and nobility of Alfred and his followers. The verse format underscores the heroic nature of Alfred’s death by relating this entry back to the earlier Chronicle poems which form the entries for 937, 942, 974 and 975, the poems recounting the noble deeds or deaths of Æthelstan, Edmund and Edgar.127 Indeed the description of the crime uses some of the same heroic language used to describe the triumph of Æthelstan and his men at Brunanburh to describe the slaughter of Alfred and his followers.128 Where the Brunanburh poet wrote: Ne wearð wæl mare on þis eiglande æfre gieta folces gefylled beforan þissum sweordes ecgum . . . siþþan eastan hider Engle and Seaxe up becoman.129 (lines 65b–70)

The Alfred poet echoed his words with: Ne wearð dreorlicre dæd gedon on þison earde syþþan Dene comon & her frið namon.130

Interestingly, the later poet also parallels the arrival of one conquering people (the Angles and Saxons) with that of another (the Danes), suggesting on one level that the latter was a legitimate heir to the former.131 Peace is established after each conquest, only to be broken when the borders of the kingdom are transgressed by outsiders, be they Vikings or an exiled heir to the throne. Borders are liminal and dangerous places and are here again marked by the double-edged presence of the sword. In both poems peace is established by force. At Brunanburh Æthelstan and his men were the noble defenders of the kingdom, and where Æthelstan’s nobility was rewarded with military victory, the nobility of the fallen ætheling and his

127 128

129 130

131

chains to Ely. As soon as he arrived, he was blinded on the ship, and thus blind was brought to the monks, and he remained there whilst he lived. Afterwards he was buried as it well befitted him, very honourably, as he deserved, at the west end, very near to the steeple in the south aisle. His soul is with Christ.’ See also MS D, ed. Cubbin, which includes the same account but does not mention Godwine. For a consideration of these poems, see above, pp. 72, 88, 105. There are also parallels between the Encomium and the equally heroic Battle of Maldon. See E. R. Anderson, ‘The Battle of Maldon: A Reappraisal of Possible Sources, Dates, and Theme’, in Modes of Interpretation in Old English Literature in Honour of Stanley B. Greenfield, ed. P. R. Brown, G. R. Crampton and F. C. Robinson (Toronto, 1986), pp. 247–72; Orchard, ‘Encomium Emmae Reginae’, pp. 182–3. ‘Never yet on this island has there been a greater slaughter of folk felled by the sword’s edges before this . . . since hither from the east the Angles and Saxons arrived.’ ‘No more horrible deed was done in this land since the Danes came and peace was made.’ See also the verses on the death of Edward the Martyr in the twelfth-century Peterborough Chronicle (MS E): Ne wearð Angel cynne nan sores dæd ge don, þonne þeos wæs syððan hi arrest Bryten land ge sohton (‘No worse deed than this was committed amongst the English people since first they came to Britain’). See C. Plummer and J. Earle, eds., Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Oxford, 1892), p. 123. See also Bredehoft, Textual Histories, pp. 110–12.

150

Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut men is rewarded with victorious entry into heaven. The final lines of the poem imply that a cult of the fallen prince was already in the making. The death of the innocent ‘hero’ Alfred in the Chronicle poem is transformed in the Encomium into a true martyrdom. The Encomiast raises Alfred to the status of a martyred saint, by lingering over the mutilation of the ætheling with hagiographic detail, and by documenting the miracles reported to have taken place at his tomb.132 Woven into the story is the image of Emma, the grieving mother who clearly could have had no role in the crime aside from that of innocent victim. In an aside to his Lady Queen (domina regina) the Encomiast laments that est quippe nullus dolor maior matri quam uidere uel audire mortem dilectissimi filii.133 The account ends with a sentence designed to associate Emma and Alfred with Mary and Christ: Gaudeat igitur Emma regina de tanto intercessore, quia (quem) quondam in terris habuit filium nunc habet in caelis patronum.134 The combination of earthly queen and heavenly son again calls to mind Bede’s hymn to Æthelthryth, the founder and patron saint of Ely, in which she was both proud queen on an earthly throne and mother of heaven’s King.135 Whether intentional or not, the effect for the informed reader is to associate the founding saint of Ely with Emma, one of the abbey’s most generous patrons. Of course not all accounts of the queen and her actions were positive. It has also been suggested that the Norman Latin poem Semiramis is a satire based on the marriage of Emma and Cnut,136 and if true it would certainly provide a scathing indictment of the royal couple. Written in dialogue form, the poem tells the story of a whore (Semiramis/Emma) who has coupled with an adulterous bull (Jupiter/Cnut). The evidence linking the poem to the marriage of Emma and Cnut is largely circumstantial, yet cannot be dismissed entirely, and thus provides a possible further motivation for Emma and her Encomiast’s insistence on depicting the queen as a pure and virtuous woman and Cnut as a loyal and respectful husband. The Encomium twice describes Emma as a virgin at the time of her marriage to Cnut: Placuit ergo regi uerbum uirginis, et iusiurando facto uirgini placuit uoluntas regis, et sic Deo gratias domina Emma mulierum nobilissima fit coniunx regis fortis[s]imi Cnutonis.137

Campbell points out, that the term virgo can mean no more than woman,138 132 133 134 135 136 137

138

Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 44–7. See further Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, p. 90. On the making of the cult of royal saints in general, see Ridyard, Royal Saints, esp. ch. 3. Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 44–5: ‘there is no greater sorrow for a mother than to see or hear of the death of a most dear son’. Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 46–7: ‘So let Queen Emma rejoice in so great an intercessor, since him, who she formerly had as son on earth, she now has as a patron in the heavens.’ See above, n. 35. E. van Houts, ‘A Note on Jezebel and Semiramis, Two Latin Norman Poems from the early Eleventh Century’, The Jnl of Medieval Latin 2 (1992), 18–24. ‘Accordingly the king found what the virgin said acceptable, and when the oath had been taken, the virgin found the will of the king acceptable, and so thanks be to God, Emma noblest of women, became the wife of the very mighty King Knútr’, Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 32–3. See the remarks on this passage by Keynes, Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. xlvi n. 4 and xiv n. 5.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England while Andy Orchard notes that it need only imply chastity,139 but even so its resonance with the Virgo, Mary, would certainly not have been lost on either the clerical author nor his Anglo-Saxon audience – already well versed in the association of the Anglo-Saxon queen with Mary – especially as the Encomiast returns to the theme in his account of Alfred’s death. It is worth noting that in this same chapter she is also referred to as a sponsa, a word which is technically appropriate as she was betrothed but not yet married to Cnut,140 but one which, especially when combined with virgo might easily have called to mind the sponsa of the Song of Songs. In addition to calling attention to Emma’s virtue and associating her with the Virgin Mary, these terms may also have been chosen to emphasise the queen’s unmarried state, and to give prominence to this marriage by glossing over the fact that she had been married previously.141 This was the blessed marriage, and it was the son of this marriage who would therefore be the rightful king. She is described in the same passage as a regina famosa (‘famous queen’), and one wonders why the Encomiast would call her both famous queen, a term that might remind readers of the fact that she had been married previously, and a virgin bride in virtually the same breath. Bede again provides a possible source. Æthelthryth of Ely had been both a virgin and a famous queen. So too had the Merovingian queen and saint Radegunde, whose life became a model for so many royal female saints, possibly including Æthelthryth,142 and in whose cult Emma may have had an interest.143 Of course Æthelthryth and Radegunde really were reputed to be both queens and virgins, while in Emma’s case, any pretence of virginity was a blatant lie – but the Encomium is not about truth and reality. The portrait that prefaces the text (fig. 21) captures in a single image the idea that Emma could be both a famous queen and a virgin mother. Emma sits enthroned like a Carolingian emperor with her two surviving sons Harthacnut and Edward in the background, and the Encomiast offering the book at her feet. The crown on her head is now the lily crown worn by both Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian kings before her.144 The general composition of the page has parallels with the slightly later portraits of countess Matilda of Tuscany enthroned in her illuminated vita of c. 1100 (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS cod. lat. 4922), and a distant precedent in the dedication page from the c. 500–12 Vienna Dioscurides (Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, cod. med. gr. M fol. 6v) showing 139 140 141

Orchard, ‘Encomium Emmae Reginae’, p. 175, cf. p. 179. See below, n. 154. See the comments by Keynes, Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. lx. See also V. Ortenberg, ‘Virgin Queens: Abbesses and Power in Early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Belief & Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. R. Gameson and H. Leyser (Oxford, 2001), pp. 59–68. 142 On Radegunde, see Krusch, ed., MGH, Auctores Antiquiores I:271–5, Scriptores rerum merowingicarum 2:358–405; J. A. McNamara, J. E. Halborg and G. Whatley, eds., Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham, NC and London, 1992), pp. 60–105; McNamara, ‘Imitatio Helenae’. See also, D. Iogna-Prat, ‘La Vierge et les ordines de couronnement des reines au ixe siècle’, in Marie, le culte de la Vierge dans la société médiévale, ed. D. Iogna-Prat, É. Palazzo and D. Russ (Paris, 1996), 100–7. 143 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 171–2. 144 The crowns that her two sons wear have no exact parallels, but may simply be meant to represent smaller versions of her own crown without the lilies.

152

Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Anicia Juliana surrounded by personifications of her various virtues, but none of these images include sons; nor do any images of enthroned Carolingian or Ottonain emperors with sons survive.145 The image of seated mother with children can be paralleled in the depictions of the descendents of Adam and Eve in the Junius 11 Genesis (Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Junius 11), and more loosely in the portrayal of some of the Old Testament figures in the Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.iv), both produced in the late tenth or early eleventh century. In both these manuscripts mothers display their sons as signs of fertility, prosperity and the blessing of God, but in each case the women are also accompanied by their husbands. As I have argued elsewhere, these images are most likely to have been based on scenes such as the Adoration of the Magi in which Mary sits with the Christ Child on her lap,146 and it seems equally clear that the adoration of the Magi was also one of the most important sources for the Encomium portrait. When faced with the task of depicting an enthroned woman approached by three men, what other image would an early medieval artist have called to mind? It must be admitted, however, that the sons seem an awkward addition to the Encomium portrait, as if the artist were creating a composition for which he had no single appropriate model. It seems most reasonable to interpret the awkwardness of the picture as the result of the artist’s combining elements from the traditional scene of the Adoration of the Magi with those of the traditional ruler portrait to suggest that Emma is just as she is described in the text: a famous queen, a virgin and a mother.147 Given the carefully constructed nature of the text, there can be no doubt that the artist also wished to preface the manuscript with a drawing that captured the idealised image of joint rule with which it originally ended: et mater amboque filii regni paratis commodis nulla lite intercedente utuntur. Hic fides habetur regni sotiis, hic inuiolabile uiget faedus materni fraternique amoris. Haec illis omnia prestitit, qui unanimes in domo habitare facit, Iesus Christus, Dominus omnium, cui in Trinitate manenti inmarcessibile floret imperium.148

145

A now destroyed psalter once thought to have belonged to Emma, wife of Lothar V, may have contained an image of the royal couple with their two children. See W. Cahn, ‘The Psalter of Queen Emma’, Cahiers Archéologiques 33 (1985), 72–85. 146 See further Karkov, Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript, CSASE 31 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 81–6; C. E. Karkov, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Genesis: Text, Illustration and Audience’, in The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches, ed. R. Barnhouse and B. C. Withers (Kalamazoo, MI, 2000), pp. 187–223. 147 A similar combination of two traditional motifs (the Trinity on fol. 64v and the illustration of the Gloria in excelsis on fol. 89v) has been shown to lie behind the unique representation of the Quinity in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook. See Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, ed. Günzel, 14–15. On works of art as constructs made from available cultural resources in general, see B. Barnes, Interests and the Growth of Knowledge (London, 1977), pp. 5–6. 148 Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 52–3: ‘the mother and both sons, having no disagreement between them, enjoy the ready amenities of the kingdom. Here there is loyalty among sharers of rule, here the bond of motherly and brotherly love is of strength and indestructible.’ On the relationship between text and image, see also P. Stafford, ‘Emma: The Powers of the Queen in the Eleventh Century’, in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. A. J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 3–26, at 13.

153

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England To the modern reader, the image also recalls Asser’s description of Alfred’s mother reading and displaying her book to her sons.149 It is unlikely that the artist modeled this image directly on that story as Emma’s sons were fully grown and presumably already literate in several languages; yet as a metaphor for a mother’s instruction, the parallel might not have been lost on an Anglo-Saxon audience – especially as one son (presumably the youngest son, Harthacnut, who was already in power when Edward returned to England) reaches for the book with one hand. For Emma too it is more than likely that the text would have reminded her of the histories read and heard at her parents’ court, and for which her mother had most probably provided material.150 Even more than the Liber Vitae, the Encomium Emmae is the queen’s book, written at her command and shown presented to her in the frontispiece of the earliest surviving copy of the text, a copy plausibly made for presentation to the queen herself.151 The fact that both sons look to their mother and that Harthacnut reaches out for the book implies that it is Emma who passes the text and kingdom (as well as family memory) on to her sons. It also presents the sharing and transmission of power as a far more amicable process than it was in reality. On the other hand, if we consider the Encomiast’s subtle casting of Emma as the virgin bride of a mighty king, and Harthacnut as the favoured son of a blessed marriage, it is hard to escape the notion that no matter what the text might say about a sharing of power, there is a subtext that establishes Harthacnut over Edward as the rightful son and heir.152 Before her marriage to Cnut, Emma had famously required the king to agree that only a son of their marriage would succeed to the throne,153 and that son was Harthacnut. Moreover, Harthacnut, like King Alfred, was a youngest son whose special place in the hearts of his parents was marked by the fact that (according to the Encomium) he remained at court while the other children of the queen and king were sent away.154 It is likely that Emma had nothing to do with the iconography of the Liber 149 150 151 152

153

154

The element of display, not just the reading, is important in both scenes. In Alfred’s case, it was the appearance of the page rather than the message of the text that first attracted him to the book. See above, p. 146. Campbell in Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. xii. Though the idea that it was meant to discredit Edward may be an overstatement. See F. Barlow, ed., The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster, Attributed to a Monk of Saint-Bertin, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992), p. xxiii; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 47 and 49. Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. 32: Sed abnegat illa, se unquam Cnutonis sponsam fieri, nisi illi iusiurando affirmaret, quod numquam alterius coniugis filium post se regnare faceret nisi eius, si forte illi Deus ex eo filium dedisset (‘But she refused ever to become the bride of Knútr, unless he would affirm to her by oath that he would never set up the son of any other wife than herself to rule after him, if it happened that God should give her a son by him’). Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, p. 34: Non multo post siquidem Saluatoris annuente gratia filium peperit nobilissima regina. Cuius cum uterque parens intima atque ut ita dicam singulari gauderet dilectione, alios uero liberales filios educandos direxerunt Normanniae, istum hunc retinentes sibi, utpote futurum heredem regni (‘For indeed soon afterwards it was granted by the Saviour’s grace that the most noble queen bore a son. The two parents, happy in the most profound and, I might say, unparalleled love for this child, sent in fact their other legitimate sons to Normandy to be brought up, while keeping this one with themselves, inasmuch as he was to be the heir to the kingdom’). Stafford (Emma and Edith, p. 34) translates liberals filios as ‘noble’ rather than ‘legitimate’ sons. On the possibility of the Encomiast’s making use of the Vita Ælfredi, see the remarks of Keynes in Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, and of Campbell in ibid., pp. xxxv–xxxvi.

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Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut Vitae double portrait, and that it is simply a reflection of Winchester goals and traditions – albeit ones heavily influenced by the court. It is far more likely that she did have a role in the production of the Encomium portrait. At the very least we can be certain that the artist modelled his drawing on the image of Emma constructed by the text, an image that was very much the one that she seems to have worked hard to promote. But whatever her involvement, or lack of it in the production of the two manuscripts, there are similarities between the two portraits. Both associate her with Mary, suggesting that she is queen, virgin and mother. Her sons (rather than just Cnut’s or Æthelred’s sons) are therefore a part of the meaning of both images, whether they are actually present on the page or not, and it was, of course, through her sons that she managed to maintain her position of power after Cnut’s death. In saying that, I do not mean to minimise Emma’s own abilities, but simply to acknowledge that, like several of her predecessors, she was practical enough to realise that her own position depended on her ability to manipulate the men around her. There is also an important difference between the two drawings. In the Liber Vitae portrait Ælfgifu is ultimately little more than a part of the book, no matter how important a part that might be, her name and image manipulated to work her comfortably into West Saxon and Winchester history and the official genealogies of the West Saxon rulers. In the Encomium portrait, on the other hand, Emma is in control, quite possibly manipulating those histories to her own ends. This is her book in her hands. Moreover, the book that she holds is not blank as are those depicted in the Liber Vitae drawings. This book has text, indicating in no uncertain terms that Emma, unlike Alfred’s mother Osburh or his wife Ealhswith, has voice. One could theorise the book itself, displayed on her knee as her real child – the word incarnate, as it were – as the book does represent her version of history, and her account of the parents, rights and duties of her sons, real and fictional. Moreover, Emma, grasping her book with both hands, is a figure of stability, calm and control at the centre of the page. The stillness of her pose contrasts with the more active poses of both her sons in the background and the scribe who kneels before her. The figures of the three men violate the borders of the architectural frame, as did the figure of Cnut in the Liber Vitae portrait, here, however, they do not direct our attention to the next page, but to the figure of Emma. They appear to be entering her world from outside the borders of the miniature, just as in reality all three were summoned or brought to Emma’s England from outside the borders of the realm.155 It is Emma herself who displays the book and directs the reader into the historical narrative. The first lines of the text on the facing page express the hope that Christ might preserve the living queen to whom the book is addressed,156 but it is the book itself that has preserved the image and memory of Emma most effectively over the centuries.

155

The scribe may have been brought to England in person, or he may have entered the country metaphorically in the form of his book. 156 Salus tibi sit a Domino Iesu Christo, o regina, que omnibus in hoc sexu positis prestas morum eligantia (‘May our Lord Jesus Christ preserve you, O Queen, who excel all those of your sex in the admirability of your way of life’): Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell and Keynes, pp. 4–5.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England

CONCLUSION

The portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu and Cnut represent the end of a uniquely Anglo-Saxon form of ruler portrait, yet they also point the way towards a new beginning. As we have seen, they build on established associations between the earthly and heavenly courts. Cnut, like Christ, is the guardian of his people and his kingdom, and the source of judgement. In his image, as in his laws, he worked hard to establish his place within the official traditions and genealogies of the Anglo-Saxon kings first developed in and around the court of Alfred. Like Alfred’s court, Cnut’s court was also a centre in which literature and law flourished; but where Alfred used language and literature to forge one kingdom and one people out of a multiplicity of ethnic and linguistic identities, Cnut was content to rule a kingdom that was simultaneously one country and part of a larger empire, both of which embraced multiple peoples and languages. Alfred had emphasised rule by wisdom at the same time that he was busy campaigning against the Vikings in Britain; Cnut, ultimately heir to those same Vikings, brought justice by the sword. It was Cnut’s image of the battle-ready king (who was also aware of his duty to the church) that would be taken up by Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwineson and William the Conqueror.157 The portraits of Emma/Ælfgifu represent what was probably the ultimate visualisation of the relationship between the Anglo-Saxon queen and Mary, yet no English queen prior to Emma’s day had been shown in such an obvious position of power. Hers was an image that was not to be taken up so easily by her successors. Portraits of later queens, Edith in the Bayeux Tapestry for example, are still based on the Marian model, but few of these portraits present the queen as such a commanding figure. On the other hand, Emma’s role as a patron or ‘author’ of texts was to be followed by her daughter-in-law Edith as well as later queens. For both Emma and Edith, as for Alfred and his mother, the book was not simply a means of entertainment or a display of power, but a tool that could be used to establish and maintain their place within the kingdom against all rivals, be they elder bothers, sons, or Norman conquerors.

157

On the harshness of Cnut’s laws, see Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 126–7.

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5 Edward, the Godwines and the End of Anglo-Saxon England

EDWARD AND EDITH

On Easter day (3 April) 1043 Edward the Confessor was crowned king at Winchester,1 becoming the last of the Cerdicing dynasty to hold the throne of England. The choice of Winchester was no doubt deliberate. The city had developed first as a capital under Alfred and Edward the Elder, and it had remained the dowager queen Emma’s seat of power; it was thus the perfect venue for Edward to proclaim his place within the dynasty and his reestablishment of the true Cerdicing bloodline after the reigns of the foreigners Cnut, Harold I and Harthacnut. It was not long after the coronation, however, that Edward began to build up his own royal complex at Westminster in London as part of a larger effort to establish a new court and a new independence. Edward’s desire to establish both his dynastic rights and a certain degree of political independence is also reflected in the iconography of his coinage. In the early years of Edward’s reign the designs of his coins emphasised his ties to the old regime, and a sense of continuity between rulers, but towards the middle of his reign the designs were altered to project a new type of image – albeit one with roots in the past. On his earliest issues (1042–53) the crowned bust, by now a standard feature of Anglo-Saxon coins, faces left, just as it had on the coinage of Harthacnut and earlier kings, and the distribution of the letters PACX in the four quadrants of the cross on the reverse of the very earliest issue, the Pacx pennies of 1042–44, has plausibly been interpreted as a reference back to the Crux coinage of his father Æthelred II,2 on which the inscription was arranged in similar fashion. The inscription, with its message of peace might also have been intended to express a wish for a return to the quieter days before the Danish conquest of 1016, as well as an end to current political rivalries. In 1053 Edward introduced a new type of coin, the Pointed Helmet, on which he appeared bearded and helmeted, facing right and holding a fleur-de-lis. The change may well be connected with the events of the previous few years: the death of his mother in 1052, the disgrace and reinstatement of the Godwine family in 1051–3 (perhaps also the death of Godwine in 1053),3 and the assassination of Rhys ap Rhydderch 1

According to the C, D and E MSS of the Chronicle the coronation was at Winchester. According the Vita Edwardi it was at Christ Church, Canterbury. 2 S. Keynes, ‘An Interpretation of the Pacx, Pax and Paxs Pennies’, ASE 7 (1978), 165–73. 3 Godwine, earl of Wessex, had risen to power in the reign of Cnut, and by the time of Edward’s

157

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England in January of 1053.4 In the opinion of Frank Barlow, the coinage was of an ‘unusually virile design’, and it may have been intended to signify the ending of the old order, and perhaps also the king’s faith that a period of renewed stability was finally at hand.5 The coinage was changed again in 1056 to show the king enthroned with staff and orb (fig. 22) (a design which ultimately went back to Roman imperial models),6 and again in 1059 to show him crowned, bearded and jewelled, facing directly out at the viewer. This final design was most likely influenced by the coinage of the Ottonian rulers Henry II, Conrad II and Henry III, but it should also be noted that facing busts had been a feature of early Anglo-Saxon coinage,7 although there is nothing to indicate that Edward had any interest in or awareness of the earlier issues. Although the coinage may have been intended to reflect Edward’s increasing independence, or at least what he viewed as his increasing independence,8 with the exception of the facing bust, the attributes of sovereignty depicted on the coins were not in and of themselves new. Cnut had been shown with a beard and pointed helmet, and Harold Harefoot with a fleur-de-lis sceptre on certain of their coins; Æthelstan is said to have held a sceptre in the lost Cotton Otho B.ix portrait, and Emma had been depicted enthroned in the frontispiece of the Encomium Emmae.9 The seal of Edward the Confessor is the earliest English seal to survive, and on it he appears much as he did on his coinage. On one side he is shown enthroned holding a sword in his left hand and a sceptre (probably surmounted by a bird) in his right;10 on the other side he is also shown enthroned, this time holding what

4

5 6 7 8

9 10

succession was the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon earls. His daughter Edith became Edward’s queen in 1045. But Edward had also brought with him from Normandy his own supporters, and tensions soon arose between the king and his father-in-law. In 1050 Edward appointed his own man, Robert of Jumièges, archbishop of Canterbury, spurning Godwine’s candidate and kinsman Ælric. In 1051 Edward’s Norman followers began planning and building castles in Herefordshire, Clavering and Dover, all lands controlled by Godwine and his sons. In 1051 a fight between the king’s brother-in-law, Eustace of Boulogne, and Godwine at Dover ended in the death of nineteen of Eustace’s men and an even greater number of townspeople. When the king refused Godwine safe passage to the ensuing council in London, he fled to Bruges. Edith was sent to the nunnery at Wilton where she had been educated. The south-east of England remained loyal to the family, however, and in 1052 Godwine cleared himself at a council in London, and the fortunes of the family were restored. See MS D, ed. Cubbin, s.a. 1052; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 69–72. Rhys ap Rhydderch was the brother of the Welsh king Gryffydd ap Rhydderch. Edward ordered him assassinated in revenge for Welsh attacks on Herefordshire during Godwine’s exile. See MS D, ed. Cubbin, s.a. 1052 (p. 71); Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 126–34. F. Barlow, The Godwins: The Rise and Fall of a Noble Dynasty (Harlow, 2002), p. 44. P. D. Whitting, ‘The Byzantine Empire and the Coinage of the Anglo-Saxons’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, pp. 23–38, at 35. See Gannon, Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage, ch. 2. If the Vita Edwardi is to be believed, Edward remained under the profound influence of his wife’s family until his death. The basically traditional and dynastic imagery of both the coins and the seal, however, argues against their having been masterminded by Edith (see Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 268). It should also be noted that while the Vita goes into great detail on the treasures with which Edith adorned the king, it consistently casts Edward as a ruler who relied not on his own strength, but on that of others. See further below. Emma, not Edward, is the first English ruler to appear enthroned, pace Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned’, p. 62 Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned’, p. 63.

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England appears to be a fleur-de-lis sceptre and a cross-mounted orb.11 The legend reads: + SIGILLUM EADWARDI ANGLORUM BASILEI (fig. 23). The iconographic source was ultimately Ottonian, as it was for the coins, but the double-sided form of the seal was derived from the two-sided bullae used by the pope and Byzantine emperors. As a statement of imperial aspiration, the seal was unprecedented for an Anglo-Saxon king, but as we have seen, it may have been based on the now lost seal of Cnut.12 Yet, even if this was not the case, the individual elements of the iconography again consisted largely of a combination of pre-established Anglo-Saxon royal attributes: the throne from the portrait of his mother, the sword and crown from the Liber Vitae portrait of Cnut,13 the fleur-de-lis sceptre from the coinage of Harold Harefoot. What appears to be the arrangement of the legend, with the cross signifying Christ directly over Edward’s head may also have a source in the compositions of the opening folios of the New Minster Charter. Even the references back to Rome were by now entirely traditional. One new element was the orb surmounted by a cross, a feature which was borrowed directly from the portraits of the Ottonian emperors (fig. 15), and one which clearly reflected Edward’s desire to be seen as an imperial style ruler, a desire also reflected in his claims to kingship over the Welsh, Scots and Britains as well as the Anglo-Saxons.14 If the individual elements of the portraits of Edward were nothing new, the stress on the attributes of power was. This feature of the coins and seal is generally thought to reflect the influence of Ottonian and Salian iconography,15 but it should again be remembered that these influences were already present in England during the reign of Cnut.16 Be that as it may, no English king prior to Edward was as demonstrably concerned with his own image in all its forms: how he dressed, how he appeared in court ceremonials, and how he was portrayed in art. Moreover, no English king prior to Edgar had appeared quite so adorned with the trappings of power, something that is also stressed in the Vita Edwardi with its account of the queen dressing the king and his horses with precious jewels and garments,17 Edward is also said to have commissioned Spearhavoc, abbot of Abingdon and bishop-elect of London to make him a new crown.18 In this sense, Edward’s reign also marks the beginning of a new image of kingship with a stress 11

12 13

14

15 16 17 18

Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned’, p. 63. Damage to the original seal has made some of the details difficult to reconstruct. See also T. A. Heslop, ‘Seals’, in English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, ed. G. Zarnecki, J. Holt and T. Holland (London, 1984), cat. no. 328. See above, p. 136. Cnut’s seal would itself have been influenced by Ottonian iconography. Cnut, not Edward, is the first English king to appear with a sword, pace Bedos-Rezak, ‘The King Enthroned’, p. 64. As noted previously, the sword is also a feature of the iconography of surviving Anglo-Saxon secular seals from the eleventh century. The Chronicle poem for 1065 grants Edward rule over all four peoples, while at the same time highlighting his genealogical descent from Æthelred, and hence from the old West Saxon dynasty. According to the poem (MS C, ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe) Edward weold wel geþungen Walum & Scottum/& Bryttum eac, byre Æðelredes,/ Englum& Sexum (‘ruled very excellently the Welsh and Scots and Britons and also, the son of Æthelred, the Angles and Saxons’). See, for example, Harmer, Writs, pp. 94–9. See above, p. 126. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 24; see also p. 166. Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, I, 463; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 106, 115.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England on the combination of throne, crown, sword and sceptre, an image that would continue to be developed by William I and his successors. For all its variety, grandeur and seeming omnipresence, there remains something not quite believable about the image of Edward, as if all the trappings of power were disguising a lack of real power. The king as a richly dressed and bejewelled figure was a staple of Carolingian royal vitae,19 but there is in fact an ambivalence about the portraits of Edward that one doesn’t find in the Carolingian texts, and that places him more than any other Anglo-Saxon king in a border area between image and reality. The image of ‘virile manhood’ displayed on the coins after 1053, for example, is at odds with the ‘powerlessness and Christian resignation’ of the king after the reinstatement of the Godwine family in 1052.20 Despite the attributes of sword and helmet Edward was not renowned for his personal prowess in battle, preferring to leave the actual fighting to others, especially his brothers-in-law.21 He is almost always shown alone and enthroned, yet his reign is famous for the competing powers behind the throne, and for the overwhelming influence of the Godwine family. He is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry as the embodiment of the wise old king, yet he is not known to have written any laws,22 and it is Edith rather than Edward who is cast as the personification of wisdom in the Vita Edwardi.23 He appears with all the medieval attributes of masculine virility (sword, staff, sceptre) but his childlessness and lack of control over the succession belie any pretence of virility. And finally, although Edward had a reputation for piety, even saintliness, both he and Edith also had a reputation as predatory collectors of relics and ecclesiastical treasure, particularly during the rebuilding of Westminster in Edward’s case.24 The same ambivalence evident in the visual imagery of the coins and seal is evident in the description of the king and his court in the Vita Edwardi, commissioned by Edith shortly before Edward’s death.25 As with the visual portraits there is also a tension between the amount of attention paid to the attributes of power highlighted in the text and the lack of real power revealed by the events of the narrative. One of the primary purposes of the Vita was certainly to secure the political position of the queen and her family at the time of the succession, and for this reason alone it must be understood in relation to the Encomium Emmae. If the Encomium was noteworthy for being, at least on the surface, more about Cnut than Emma, the Vita is noteworthy for being blatantly more about Edith and the Godwine family than it is about Edward. But where the Encomium both began 19 20 21 22

See, for example, Buc, Dangers of Ritual, p. 5. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. lxxvi and 64–7. Barlow, Edward the Confessor, p. 130. His image as a lawmaker did, however, inspire the Leges Edwardi Confessori of c. 1140. See Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 128; B. R. O’Brien, God’s Peace and King’s Peace: The Laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia, 1999). 23 Though perhaps this is not surprising as it was commissioned by Edith primarily to bolster her own position and that of her family at court as Edward’s death became imminent. 24 Barlow, Godwins, p. 77. 25 Book I is generally assumed to have been commissioned before Edward’s death as a means of strengthening Harold’s claim to the throne, and Book II to have been written after the Battle of Hastings. See Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. xxix–xxxiii; A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), p. 60.

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England and ended with images of Emma in a position of power, the Vita time and again refuses to grant Edward such a position,26 so that he remains in the background in a way that Emma did not. The only place in the story in which Edward plays a central role is in his attention to the church and his performance of miracles (the latter all contained in Book II). Indeed, by emphasising Edward’s piety Edith and her author manage to turn a political pitfall, Edward’s lack of an heir, into a positive tool in the development of his posthumous cult and eventual sainthood. Edith and Edward’s union is cast above all as holy and is described in words that provide an interesting play on those used by Christ to define exactly what an ideal Christian marriage should be; rather than being two in one flesh (Matthew 19:6) they were corpore nam gemino unus habentur homo.27 Naturally, if they were one in two bodies, and if their choice of a celibate marriage (assuming that the marriage was celibate) was mutual, then Edith too could theoretically partake of some of Edward’s saintliness,28 something that she actively seems to have pursued through her patronage of Wilton and other churches. Furthermore, in the Encomium Emmae it was claimed that Cnut had promised to make only a son of his marriage to Emma king, but the Vita Edwardi trumps that story by having the nation and God with one will and one voice proclaim Edward king while still in his mother’s womb.29 The trope of the king chosen by divine will and the will of the people is also found in the Vita Alfredi,30 but Alfred was already secundarius (‘heir apparent’) when he was chosen, while Edward had not yet been born. Earlier kings, like Alfred, had modelled themselves on Christ, claimed to have been raised to the throne by God or Christ, or claimed to have ruled with God-given wisdom and authority, but Edward is portrayed as a living saint. The author of the Vita builds up this image as the narrative progresses, with Edward’s kingship not only proclaimed by God and country, but also foretold in the dream of Brihtwald, a Glastonbury monk,31 in which St Peter himself consecrates the king.32 By the end of the story the will of the people has all but disappeared and Edward is consecrated more by God than by men.33 The author states in turn that it is because of

26 27 28 29

30 31 32

33

It should be remembered, however, that the Vita survives only in an incomplete and possibly mutilated form. ‘One person dwelling in double form’ (Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 6). All translations are from Barlow’s edition unless otherwise stated. A point probably not lost on Edith herself. See Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 260. In hac uoce populi non dissonat uox et uoluntas domini (‘In this voice of the people there was no disharmony with the voice and will of the Lord’), Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 12–13. It is certainly significant that Emma is not named in the Vita, and is referred to in this episode simply as antiqui regis Æthelredi regia coniuge (‘the royal wife of old King Æthelred’), ibid. Asser, ed. Stevenson, p. 32; Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, p. 80; see above, p. 43. Brihtwald was promoted to bishop in 995 and died in 1045. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 14–15: cum ecce inter sancta sanctorum uidet beatum Petrum, apostolorum primum, decentem hominis personam in regem consecrare, celibem ei uitam designare, regnique annos sub certo uite calculo determinare (‘When lo! In the Holy of Holies he saw the blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, consecrate the image of a seemly man as king, assign him the life of a bachelor, and set the years of his reign by a fixed reckoning of his life’). Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 91–3. As Barlow notes (ibid., p. 92 n. 229), the words also echo those of the coronation ordo.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England this doubly-divine consecration that Edward lived a life of innocence dedicated to God, as foretold in the vision of St Peter. But Edward does not make an appearance in the Vita until several folios into Book I. After the poetic prologue the Vita Edwardi opens with praise not of Edward but of Cnut (the king responsible for Godwine’s rise to power),34 and more particularly of Godwine himself, a cunctis patri” filliis pro patre colebatur.35 Edward, after having been chosen king by God and people, disappears into exile until Godwine, looked upon pro patri” ab omnibus,36 urges that he be called back to take up his rightful throne.37 In the Encomium Emmae it was of course Edward’s devoted mother and half-brother who summoned him back to England as co-ruler, and Godwine had nothing to do with it. By either account, Edward was far from the prime mover in his own rise to power, and this picture is supported by the D text of the Chronicle, which claims that Godwine held all the actual power.38 Perhaps this was one of the reasons Edward seems to have been so concerned with displays of power. Once he has succeeded to the throne, Edward is still curiously not the protagonist of his own Vita at any point other than in the miracles of Book II and in his rebuilding of Westminster.39 His kingly duties are for the most part limited to receiving visitors and sending messengers, hunting, and attending church. Alfred too loved hunting and devoted much of his attention to religious concerns, but he was also adept at battle both in life and in Asser’s text. Moreover, in the Vita Alfredi hunting was presented as training for military leadership and as a metaphor for the pursuit of wisdom, but there is no evidence that it had any such positive connotations in the Vita Edwardi. Carolingian kings are also described as avid hunters,40 but again their abilities in the hunt were balanced by their abilities as political and military leaders. Nowhere in his vita does Edward appear in the least interested in books or learning, similarly he fights no glorious battles and indeed spends most of his time trying to avoid civil war – first because of his banishment of the Godwines and then because of his attempted support of Tostig.41 It is Harold and Tostig who are portrayed as defending England against

34 35 36 37

38

39 40 41

On Godwine’s rise to power, see especially Keynes, ‘Cnut’s Earls’; Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 5–6. ‘Revered by all the country’s sons as a father’ (Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 10–11). ‘As a father by all’ (Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 14). Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 14. On Godwine as king-maker, see also Florence of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, vol. II, ed. R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk and J. Bray (Oxford, 1995), s.a. 1043. MS D, ed. Cubbin, s.a. 1052 (p. 71): Þæt wolde ðyncan wundorlic ælcum men þe on Englalande wæs, gif ænig man ær þam sæde þæt hit swa gewurþan sceolde, for ðam þe he wæs ær to þam swyðe up ahafen swylce he weolde þæs cynges & ealles Englalandes (‘That would have seemed strange to anyone who was in England, if anyone had said that it should happen thus, because he had been raised up so high so that he ruled the king and all of England’). For descriptions of Westminster Abbey, see pp. 68–71 and 110–13; and see below, p. 167. See above, p. 47. In the Vita Edwardi (pp. 30–8) the blame for the events of 1051–52 is placed primarily on Archbishop Robert, whom Edward had appointed archbishop of Canterbury against Godwine’s wishes; nevertheless, Edward’s acceptance of what the Vita suggests was bad advice calls his embodiment of the wise king into question.

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England the Welsh and the Scots,42 and in general it is Edward’s nobles who are credited with keeping the kingdom secure so that the king can spend his time hunting:43 Regno igitur his principibus undique confirmato, benignissimus rex Ædwardus uitam agebat in securitate et quiete, plurimumque temporis exigebat circa saltus et siluas in uenationum iocunditate.

In fact, Edward sends messengers three times to try and negotiate with those who had driven Tostig from the kingdom before he interrupts his hunting at Britford to deal with the matter personally.44 Although he may be covered in jewels and costly attire,45 Edward never appears in the Vita wielding a sword, staff or orb of power as he does on his coins and seal. Nor does he actually appear enthroned. As elsewhere in the Vita, the image of the king is curiously displaced, and instead of describing the king enthroned in all his magnificence, the author chooses to describe the queen sitting humbly not on a throne but at his feet. Cui cum ex more et iure regia sedes assidue pararetur a regis latere, preter ecclesiam et regalem mensam malebat ad pedes ipsius sedere, nisi forte manum illi porrigeret uel nutu dextere iuxta se ad sedendum inuitaret siue cogeret.46

Perhaps because Edward and Edith had no children of their own and their families remained related only by marriage rather than by blood, the Vita Edwardi presents us with some interesting twists on familial relationships, some of which are backed up by other sources, and some of which clearly existed only in the context of the narrative. The old capital of Winchester, for example, is associated with Edith’s family rather than with Edward’s. Admittedly, Godwine was earl of Wessex, but it was Edward’s family that had made the city a royal and ecclesiastical centre. Earl Godwine is said to have been buried at the Old Minster, Winchester, a monastery to which he had given many gifts during his life,47 and his widow Gytha is said to have given the manors of Bleadon and Crowcombe to the Minster in memory of his soul.48 While the evidence for their patronage is dubious, Godwine at least does seem to have been commemorated amongst the ealdormen on folio 17r of the New Minster Liber Vitae,49 and some level of patronage is therefore likely. Edward is also known to have been a benefactor of Winchester,50 at least during the early years of his reign, and both he and Edith are 42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50

Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 65–7. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 60–3: ‘And so, with the kingdom made safe on all sides by these nobles, the most kindly King Edward passed his life in security and peace, and spent much of his time in the glades and woods in the pleasures of hunting.’ Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 78. In fact the king rather disappears beneath the list of stuffs in which the queen dressed him; see below, p. 166. ‘Although by custom and law a royal throne was always prepared for her at the king’s side, she preferred, except in church and at the royal table, to sit at his feet, unless perchance he should reach out his hand to her, or with a gesture of the hand invite or command her to sit next to him’ (Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 64–5). Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 46. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 47 n. 112. Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, p. 36. See, for example, S 1001, 1006, 1007, 1008, 1012, 1013, 1016 (dubious), 1151, 1153 (confirmation of his mother’s grant of Godebegot to the Old Minster), 1154 (dubious).

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England commemorated in the Liber Vitae, but his patronage ended with the death of his mother in 1052, his last surviving grant (S 1153) being a writ confirming her grant to the Old Minster of the land Æthelred had given her in Winchester.51 Edward’s early grants to the Old and New Minsters are not only not mentioned in the Vita Edwardi, but even his coronation is moved from Winchester to Canterbury. Instead, Edward’s interests are presented as focussing almost exclusively on the rebuilding of Westminster. No doubt Edward’s turn towards London and away from Winchester was fuelled by his desire to associate himself with his father, buried at St Paul’s, and to disassociate himself from his mother and Cnut, both buried in the Old Minster, and perhaps also from the Godwines. He may also, however, have intended the dedication of Westminster to St Peter to be a means of connecting the new dynastic centre with the old. St Peter was one of the saints to whom the New Minster was dedicated, and Peter had figured prominently in the iconography of kingship during the reigns of both Edgar and Cnut (figs. 7 and 17). (It was also Peter who had consecrated Edward king in the dream episode of the Vita Edwardi.) As with his coins and seal, Westminster could have been a symbol both of continuity and innovation. There is nothing in the Vita Edwardi to suggest such a scenario, however, and the result within the context of this narrative is to subtly associate Godwine and his family with the royal monuments of the old West Saxon dynastic heartland, a move which could certainly be understood as propaganda in the transition of power from Edward to Harold II. Of equal significance is the fact that, the Vita parallels Edward’s rebuilding of Westminster with Edith’s rebuilding of the old West Saxon royal abbey of Wilton in what Pauline Stafford has described as Edith’s explicit affirmation of old dynastic connections.52 These connections are in fact highlighted in the author’s account of the rebuilding of Wilton: Wiltuni enim tunc temporis licet cenobium esset ancillarum Christi, chorus quoque non minus antiquitatis ueteris, ibique competenter locata ueneraretur eius equiuoca sancta Ædgith, de cuius progenie idem rex Ædwardus descenderat, lignea tamen adhuc illic ecclesia stabat. Nullum siquidem locum magis estimauit meritum deuotionis su” labore et studio, quam eum quem meminit elaborasse in sui documento, et ubi potissimum eas uirtutes addicit, per quas ut Anglorum regina fieret idonea inueniri meruit. Nusquam quoque credidit elemosinam magis iri saluam, quam ubi infirmus sexus et minus in edificiis efficax altius penuriarum sentit angustiam, et minus per se ad hanc proficit pellendam. Quod clementius intendens per se, utpote que per spiritum dei misericordi” uisceribus affluebat, hic regio opere lapideum monasterium inchoat.53 51 52

See above, p. 126 n. 30 Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 269. See also Foot, Veiled Women, II, 229: ‘What seems most striking about Goscelin’s account of Wilton in the mid-tenth century is the close connection between this house and the leading noble families of Wessex from whose ranks the members of the community were drawn, as well as, most significantly, the royal house of Cerdic.’ 53 Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 70–1: ‘For at Wilton at that time, although there was a convent of handmaidens of Christ, a choir, too, of the greatest antiquity, and her namesake saint, adequately housed, was worshipped there – Edith, from whose stock King Edward himself was descended – the church was still of wood. And she judged no place more deserving of her devoted labour and zeal than that which, she recalled, had taken pains with her education, and where above all she had learned those virtues which deservedly made her seem suitable to become queen of the English. Also, nowhere did she believe alms would be better bestowed than where the weaker sex, less skilled in building, more deeply felt the pinch of poverty, and was less able by its own efforts to drive it away. Benignly she planned this herself, as one

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England Edward was the grandson of Edgar, Edith of Wilton’s father, and Edith of Wilton had been responsible for the royal patronage Wilton had enjoyed under Edgar and his successors. She was also responsible for at least some of the wooden buildings still standing when Queen Edith decided to rebuild the monastery.54 Queen Edith was schooled at Wilton, and is therefore likely to have had some genuine attachment to the abbey, but in the passage quoted above the author makes the saint, abbey and queen interdependent on each other in some interesting ways. The abbey is the source of Edith’s queenly virtues, but its present ‘poverty’ also contrasts with her queenly wealth.55 The royal rebuilding in stone appropriates the spaces on which the saint and her predecessors had built in the lesser material of wood, and in the act of rebuilding the queen becomes assimilated to the saint for whom, the author suggests, she was named. The queen thus becomes as much a descendent of the saint in name as the king is by birth, and at least on a theoretical level becomes a type of spiritual ancestor for Edward, in the sense that she is assimilated by name to his real ancestor. If Stafford is correct in suggesting that Edith could have been the queen’s official name rather than the one she was given at birth,56 the rhetorical strategy of the text would have been all the more striking. Queen Edith is also of course described as more like a daughter than a wife to Edward at several points in the Vita.57 As chaste wife, dutiful daughter and spiritual mother to the king Edith becomes a Marian figure to Edward’s saintly imitation of Christ. In this sense the portrait of the couple can be understood as a development of the now traditional modelling of the queen and king on Mary and Christ, and one which is all the more appropriate because of this royal couple’s claims to a chaste and spiritual marriage. In a new development of the image of the king, but one that is in keeping with the assertions of his saintliness, Edward too becomes a sort of spiritual parent. In the first of the miracles recorded in Book II, Edward cures a barren and disfigured woman of the ‘King’s Evil’ by bathing her face and caressing it with his own hands.58 Edward has the woman cared for at court like a child until she recovers her former health and beauty, and ‘within a year’ the previously barren woman conceived a child which was clearly as much the child of Edward’s healing hands as it was of the woman’s own husband.59 Despite the spiritual fecundity of the miracle of the barren woman, Edward is in many ways portrayed as if he were dying or already dead at the three points in the Vita at which his person is described in any detail. He is already old and somewhat withdrawn in his first appearance at the time that he becomes king:

54 55 56 57 58 59

abounding in the bowels of mercy through the Holy Spirit, and began here royally to build a monastery in stone.’ See above, p. 115. Wilton was never an especially impoverished house. See above, p. 116; Foot, Veiled Women, II, 228–9, 231. Stafford, Emma and Edith, p. 257. For example pp. 24, 64, 91. As Barlow notes (Life of Edward, p. 93 n. 234), St Edith is also said to have miraculously cured an Abbess Ælfgifu of the same disease at about the same time. Life of Edward, p. 94: Et qu” prius uel ob eandem uel aliam infirmitatem sterilis erat, eodem anno et marito fecunda extitit.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England Hominis persona erat decentissima, discret” proceritatis, capillis et barba canitie insignis lactea, facie plena et cute rosea, manibus macris et niueis, longis quoque interlucentibus digitis, reliquo corpore toto integer et regius homo, continua grauitate iocundus, humiliatis incedens uisibus, gratissim” cum quouis affabilitatis.60

Edward’s downcast eyes may be appropriate to a religious figure, or even to a king during prayer or liturgical ceremonies, but they are inappropriate to a king at court. They are certainly at odds with the confrontational image of the king on his coins and seal, and, as Barlow notes, the description of Edward at this point is based on a description of the dead of St Omer rather than on the living king himself.61 Edward’s next significant appearance in the narrative is in the account of the luxurious garments in which Edith clothed him: hec a principio sue coniunctionis talibus eum ex suo ipsius opere uel studio redimiuit ornamentis, ut uix ipse Salomon in omni gloria sua ita indutus putari posset. In quibus ornandis non estimabatur quanto preciosi lapides et rare gemme atque uniones candidi pararentur; in clamidibus et tunicis, caligis quoque et calciamentis nulla auri quantitas in uarietate florum multipliciter se effundencium pensabatur. Sedes ubique nitebat parata palliis acu operante auro intextis; loca subpedanea tegebantur preciosioribus Hispanie tapetis. Baculus eius ad cotidianum incessum auro et gemmis operiebatur. Sella et phalera eius bestiolis et auiculis auro paratis ipsa febrile opus dictante, appendebantur.62

Here, the king himself disappears beneath the layers of gold and jewels in which he is covered, giving the description very much the feel of that of a saintly relic encased within a reliquary. Only the mention of the walking stick and horse-trappings reveal that there is a living figure beneath all the embroidery, gems and metalwork. The detailed description of Edward’s attire in the passage quoted above may be usefully compared to the equally detailed description of Westminster at the time of its consecration, the time at which it also became Edward’s shrine. Cumulatur uariis basilica beati principis apostolorum sufficienter ornamentis, sacrorumque uasorum instauratur utensilibus preciosis. Que cotidiano in ecclesia dei congruant ministerio, queue magnifica resplendeant in die festo, liberalis munificentia regis ad copiam contulit, et domum domini larga uenustate sollempniter decorauit. In auro et preciosis lapidibus nescitur modus, et qui in rebus temporalibus modum non excesserat, in regalibus donatiuis mensuram non seruat. Adiecit et his in diuersarum prouinciarum territoriis ditia regalium fiscorum predia, opulentisque dotibus noua dei 60

Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 18–19: ‘He was a very proper figure of a man – of outstanding height, and distinguished by his milky white hair and beard, full face and rosy cheeks, thin white hands, and long translucent fingers; in all the rest of his body he was an unblemished royal person. Pleasant, but always dignified, he walked with eyes downcast, most graciously affable to one and all.’ 61 Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, p. 19 n. 41. 62 Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 24–5: ‘Edith, from the very beginning of their marriage, clad him in raiments either embroidered by herself or of her choice, and of such a kind that it could not be thought that even Solomon in all his glory was ever thus arrayed. In the ornamentation of these no count was made of the cost of the precious stones, rare gems and shining pearls that were used. As regards mantles, tunics, boots and shoes, the amount of gold which flowed in the various complicated floral designs was not weighed. The throne, adorned with coverings embroidered with gold, gleamed in every part; the floors were strewn with precious carpets from Spain. Edward’s staff, for everyday use when walking, was encrusted with gold and gems. His saddle and horse-trappings were hung with little beasts and birds made from gold by smiths under her direction.’

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England sponsa refloruit, et sicut intus in moribus, sic extra in facultatibus, uberius coruscauit. Quot prata, quot pascua, quot siluas, quot aquas, quot rura, quot sata contulit ecclesie! . . . Magna uero et iocunda sollempnitas, qua regna Saba in uestibus deauratis a dextris astitit ueri Salomonis, ineffabile tripudium contulisset patrie, si non esset prepeditum grauante regis infirmitate.63

While the comparison is by no means exact, both passages focus on the abundant ornamentation of what basically amounts to vessels for the king’s body, and manifestations of his wealth and saintliness rather than his political acumen or power. In these two descriptions the roles of Edward and Edith are also paralleled. In the first passage it is Edith, the bride/daughter, raised to the throne by the king, who is adorning her bridegroom, while in the second passage it is the bride/church that has been adorned by the king and becomes in turn his adornment. Finally, in death Edward’s body is very much as it was in the earlier description of the living king; in fact it is as if the body of the king is still living and only asleep: scilicet caro faciei ut rosa ruberet, subiecta barba ut lilium canderet, manus suo ordine direct” albescerent totumque corpus non morti sed fausto sopori traditum signarent.64 His face is still as rosy as it was when he became king, and the description of his hands as white in death is very much akin to that of his hands as translucent in life.65 Such descriptions are of course part and parcel of hagiography, but together they help to suggest in very concrete terms the idea that the king is a saint and that the bodies and relics of the saints live on, occupying an eternal boundary area in which they are both living and dead.66 Perhaps because of his saintliness the wordplay on Angles and angels present in Anglo-Saxon documentary sources from the age of Bede on is more pronounced in texts relating to Edward than it is in texts relating to any other Anglo-Saxon king. It occurs explicitly at least three times in the Vita Edwardi. Of the king, for example, we are told that Edward himself in squalore mundi angelum uiuebat,67 a phrase that also suggests the paradisiacal nature of the 63

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65 66 67

Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 114–15: ‘The basilica of the blessed Prince of the Apostles was amply heaped with ornaments of all kinds, and stocked with all the precious vessels and sacred utensils. The king’s liberal bounty gave in abundance both those that would be suitable for daily service in God’s church and those sumptuous things that would shine gloriously on festive days, and religiously adorned the house of the Lord with much beauty. Measure was not observed with the gold and precious stones, and he who in temporal affairs had not transgressed due measure, in his royal gifts gave no heed to amount. And to these he added rich estates situated in the territories of various provinces and pertaining to the royal treasury. With these rich dowry gifts the new bride of God bloomed again, and, as much internally in conduct as externally in possessions, shone out more fruitfully. What gifts of meadowland, pasture, woodland, waters, farms, and crops he made to the church! . . . This great and joyful occasion, when on the right hand of the true Solomon did stand the queen of Sheba in clothing of wrought gold, would have conveyed ineffable joy to the country, had it not been checked by the sickness oppressing the king.’ Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 124–5: ‘the flesh of his face blushed like a rose, the adjacent beard gleamed like a lily, his hands, laid out straight, whitened and were a sign that his whole body was given not to death but to auspicious sleep’. Albesco is a verb used in phrases describing the dawning of the day, and hence can be understood as evoking a sense of shining or glittering similar to that evoked by interluceo. On this subject, see the collected papers of P. J. Geary in his Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London, 1994), esp. ‘Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics’, ch. 10. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 62–3: ‘lived in the squalor of the world like an angel’.

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England gilded and jewelled court, and helps to further the image of Edward as saint or relic. The association of the king of the Angles with angels may also be implicit in the statement that he was consecrated more by heaven than by men.68 The English too are like angels in two separate episodes. The first occurs near the beginning of Edward’s reign when the English noblemen are described as angels in their defence of the bounds of their country: hi sic angelici iunctis duo uiri Angli seruant Angligenos sub eodem federe fines.69

The second occurs near the end of Edward’s life when William of Malmesbury implies that with the death of Edward would come the end of the angelic Angelcynn: Quid de Anglia dicam? Quid posteris referam? Ve tibi est Anglia qu” olim sancta prole fulsisti angelica, sed nunc pro peccatis ualde gemis anxia.70 A similar, though notably less pessimistic tone is struck in the Chronicle poem for 1065 on Edward’s death. In the opening lines of the poem Edward, Engla hlaford,71 sends his soul to Christ, while near the end of the poem Englas feredon sopfæste sawle innan swegles leoht.72 In the portraits in the New Minster Charter (fig. 7) and Liber Vitae (fig. 17), Edgar, Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut had been depicted beneath the angels of the heavenly kingdom it was hoped they would one day inhabit, but Edward is literally carried up to heaven by angels.

ENGLISH KINGSHIP IN THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY

Edward the Confessor appears in the Bayeux Tapestry at the end of his life, and his visual portrait accords in every way with the ambivalence of the verbal portrait sketched in the Vita Edwardi: he is old and white haired with long slender fingers, but as on his coins and seal he is also enthroned with full regalia. The tapestry, however, is about the end of Anglo-Saxon England, and as Martin Foys has recently noted, Edward quickly progresses from the vertical to the horizontal.73 At the beginning of the tapestry he sits upright on his throne (larger than life and leaning slightly to the left) in his first meeting with Harold (fig. 24); then he is sickly and hunched over (but equally larger than life) at Harold’s return from Normandy; as he approaches death he lies in a horizontal position with only his head erect; and finally he is completely horizontal in the scenes of his enshrouding and funeral (fig. 25). In the movement of Edward’s body from vertical to horizontal, the tapestry visually captures the illness and decline 68 69 70

71 72 73

Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 90–2. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 58–9: ‘so these angelic Angles with joined strength and like agreement guard the English bounds’. Life of Edward, ed. Barlow, pp. 108–9: ‘And what shall I say about England? What shall I tell generations to come? Woe is to you England, you once shone bright with holy, angelic progeny, but now with anxious expectation groan exceedingly for your sins.’ ‘Lord of the Angles’. ‘Angels carried his steadfast soul into the light of heaven.’ For the text of the poem, see MS C, ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe. Foys, ‘All’s Well that Ends’, 60–1.

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England described in the Vita’s verbal narrative, but it also provides a metaphor for the decline of Anglo-Saxon England that was not a part of the Vita and its pro Godwine message. The problematic reversal of narrative direction in the scene of Edward’s death and funeral might also be usefully considered with regard to the progressive descriptions of Edward’s body in the Vita. In the case of the Vita, I have argued that the similarity of Edward’s body in life and death was meant as a sign of his saintly status: he was dead to the world in this life (or an angel amidst life’s squalor), while in death he lived on and seemed as if he were only sleeping. The reversal of direction in the funeral scene in the tapestry might have been intended to express this same idea visually. It is, after all, only the fully shrouded and enshrined body, the body encased in a cross-covered bier or shrine not all that different except in scale from the reliquaries on which Harold swears his oath before William,74 that moves against the narrative to be received by the hand of God. In other words, as a saint in the making Edward’s body does not follow the linear progress from life to death followed by the bodies of regular mortals like Harold and the rest of the casualties of the Battle of Hastings, but remains encased in its shrine negotiating the space between the living and the dead,75 the Anglo-Saxon past and the Anglo-Norman future. The image of Harold as a legitimate king at his coronation (fig. 26) is clearly modelled on the image of Edward, the image of the king enthroned with sceptre and orb that he developed, and that lay behind his own representation in the tapestry. In the tapestry, however, Harold is not portrayed as the loyal warrior earl and worthy successor to the throne that we see in the Vita Edwardi. Harold’s demise, perhaps also his lack of legitimacy in Norman eyes, is foreshadowed by his rapid movement towards the horizontal in the very next scene (fig. 27). Significantly, Harold’s title has been omitted from the inscription above his head, and the sword that was held upright in the scene of his coronation is now turned point downwards. Exactly what is going on in this scene remains ambiguous. Who is the man to whom Harold speaks, and what is being said? The presence and position of the sword only add to the ambiguity. Presumably it is being handed to the king, but we cannot be certain of this, and we do not see him actually holding it. It had been a feature of canon law that those accused of serious crimes were ritually unmanned by being required to give up their arms, especially their sword-belt, and other trappings of power, as well as to cease sexual relations with their wives or forego marriage altogether.76 In Norman eyes, and within the narrative of the 74

Suzanne Lewis has described the bier carrying Edward’s body as a conflation of the two shrines from the oath-swearing scene (The Rhetoric of Power in the Bayeux Tapestry [Cambridge, 1999], pp. 102–3). 75 Victoria Thompson dismisses the idea that the scene may be a reference to Edward’s sanctity because she believes that there is nothing in the visual narrative of the tapestry to suggest that the designer(s) saw him as a saint. This is clearly a circular argument. Thompson does see Edward as situated ‘on the boundary between life and death’, but suggests that this boundary position is meant to refer to Christian notions of kingship in general rather than to Edward as a particular focus of cult. See V. Thompson, ‘Kingship-in-Death in the Bayeux Tapestry’, Reading Medieval Studies 25 (1999), 107–21, at 112–18. 76 K. Leyser, ‘Early Medieval Canon Law and the Beginning of Knighthood’, in his Communication and Power, ed. Reuter, pp. 51–71, at 59–64; Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 236. Harold was married to Ealdgyth, daughter of earl Ælfgar of Mercia, and possibly had two sons at the time of his death, but

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England tapestry, Harold had broken his oath to William and had unlawfully seized the English throne. He was therefore guilty of both perjury and treason, and the ambiguously placed sword along with the lack of title and inclined pose of the king may well have been intended as signs of the king’s criminal status and of his imminent and literal unmanning at the Battle of Hastings.77 Harold’s empty hands and downward pointing sword also contrast with the upright sword held by William in the scene that follows the Norman feast at Hastings and the beginning of the building of the Norman fortifications, as well as with the upright banner that he holds as he receives news of Harold’s whereabouts, and as the Norman troops set out for Hastings.78 Harold’s symbolic ‘unmanning’ in the earlier image may be referenced in the contrast created by the words used to describe William in the inscription that begins the series of scenes devoted to the final battle: HIC WILLELM DUX ALLOQVITVR SVIS MILITIBVS VT PREPARARENT SE VIRILITER ET SAPIENTER AD PRELIVM CONTRA ANGLORUM EXERCITV[M].79

In contrast to Harold and the English, William and the Norman troops are both manly and wise, and they dutifully attack, moving forward with increasing speed and force against the English defensive shield wall. The first deaths to be represented are those of Harold’s brothers Leofric and Gyrth, both of whom are named in the accompanying inscription. Harold and his brothers are the only casualties of the battle to be identified by name, a fact which has led Shirley Ann Brown to suggest quite reasonably that the deaths of the three brothers were singled out as a means of suggesting the destruction of the entire family and the end of their claims to land and power.80 The point is made even more forcefully in the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, thought to have been written by Guy of Amiens between 1066 and 1068. The poem identifies Gyrth as having been born of a royal line (regis traduce progenitus) before describing William’s violent dismemberment of his body after Gyrth unseats him from his horse: Membratim perimens, h”c sibi uerba dedit:/ ‘Accipe promeritam nostri de parte coronam;/ Si periit sonipes, hanc tibi reddo pedes.’81 Gyrth is here reduced socially to the status of a common soldier, and physically to a set of unidentifiable body fragments.

77

78

79 80 81

neither his marriage nor sons have a place in the tapestry’s narrative. On his marriage and family, see Barlow, The Godwins, pp. 92 and 121–2. The spectral fleet beneath Harold’s feet is also generally interpreted as a sign of the coming battle. For discussion of individual scenes, details, and bibliography of the Bayeux Tapestry see especially M. K. Foys, The Bayeux Tapestry, Digital Edition (Leicester, 2003). Madeline Caviness has read William’s ‘phallic’ sword hilt in this latter scene as a sign of his triumphant masculinity and inevitable victory, but as many of the English soldiers are shown with similarly positioned sword hilts this would seem to be a case of over interpretation. See M. H. Caviness, ‘Obscenity and Alterity: Images that Shock and Offend Us/Them, Now/Then?’ in Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, ed. J. M. Ziolkowski (Leiden, 1998), pp. 155–75, at 169. ‘Here Duke William exhorts his troops to prepare themselves manfully and wisely for battle against the army of the English.’ S. A. Brown, ‘The Bayeux Tapestry and the Song of Roland’, Olifont 6 (1979), 339–50, at 343. ‘Hewing him limb from limb, he shouted to him: “Take the crown you have earned from us! If my horse is dead, thus I requite you – as a common soldier.” ’ (The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Ameins, ed. C. Morton and H. Muntz (Oxford, 1972), pp. 30–1).

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England Both William and Odo are named in the Bayeux Tapestry inscriptions as they rally their troops and urge them on to fight,82 but Harold is without voice in this version of the battle, and the English do nothing but defend themselves, die, and flee the battlefield in unmanly fashion after the death of their king. Like his brother Gyrth’s death, Harold’s death is also a dismemberment and in this case a quite graphic unmanning. The scene of Harold’s death (fig. 28) is again controversial, with debate continuing over whether Harold is the figure shot in the eye with an arrow, or the fallen and near horizontal figure whose legs are being hewn by the sword of a mounted Norman soldier, or whether both figures are meant to represent Harold depicted at two separate moments of his death.83 Two details of the tapestry suggest that this last interpretation is correct. Firstly, the inscription (HAROLD REX INTERFECTUS EST)84 begins and ends directly over the two figures thought to represent the king. Secondly, the double image of death roughly parallels the double image of Edward the Confessor’s death, both men being shown first dying and then dead. One could also note that both men are shown moving dramatically from the vertical to the horizontal as death approaches – Harold in this single scene and Edward in the successive images of his audience with Harold on his return from Normandy and the deathbed scene. It would also be very unlikely that the figure whose head is framed by the name HAROLD could be anyone other than the king.85 Moving outside the visual narrative of the tapestry, the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio provides evidence that second figure must also be Harold. According to the poem, the final blow to Harold’s body was the hewing off of his thigh by a Norman knight identified as Gifford.86 As the editors of the poem note, the term used for thigh (coxa) was an established euphemism for penis,87 the final blow 82

83

84 85

86

87

See the inscription cited above. The inscription referring to Odo reads: HIC ODO EP[I]S[COPUS] BACVLV[M] TENENS CONFOR TAT PVEROS (‘Here Bishop Odo, holding his stick, cheers on the youths’). On Harold’s death in general, see N. P. Brooks and H. E. Walker, ‘The Authority of the Bayeux Tapestry’, The Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1 (1978), 1–34. See also the commentary on this scene in Foys, Digital Edition. ‘Harold has been killed.’ Foys (Digital Edition, commentary to panel 169) notes that ‘Though the inscription here does break around the figure’s head, due consideration must be given to the probability that the inscriptions were added slightly later around the existing images, and that the length of the extended descriptive phrase centres over the figure being cut down by the horseman.’ However, as it stands the inscription centres over the group of three figures, not just the one being cut down by the horseman – the end of the inscription is placed over his body – and there is more than sufficient space above the standing soldiers in panel 170 for the inscription to have been moved completely to the right of the figure with the arrow in his eye should the designer(s) have wished to do so. Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, ed. Morton and Muntz, pp. 34–7: Per clipeum primus dissoluens cuspide pectus,/ Effuso madidat sanguinis imbre solum;/ Tegmine sub gale” caput amputat ense secundus;/ Et telo uentris tertius exta rigat;/Abscidit coxam quartus; procul egit ademptam (‘The first, cleaving his breast through the shield with his point, drenched the earth with a gushing torrent of blood; the second smote off his head below the protection of the helmet and the third pierced the innards of his belly with his lance; the fourth hewed off his thigh and bore away the severed limb’). It might also be noteworthy that, just as Harold’s death is spread across two images in the tapestry, it occupies the whole of an elegiac couplet in the poem (R. M. Stein, ‘The Trouble with Harold: The Ideological Context of the Vita Haroldi’, New Medieval Literatures 2 [1998], 181–204, at 184). Carmen de Hastingae, ed. Morton and Muntz, p. 37 n 1. See also Stein, ‘The Trouble with Harold’. On the phallic nature of the wound, see D. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (Chicago, IL,

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The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England thus bringing about not only the literal dismemberment of the king’s body, but also the symbolic destruction of the power and the line of the Godwines. But blinding was also a symbolic form of castration in so far as it rendered a king unfit to rule. Moreover, it was a form of punishment (or means of death) which might also have had a particularly ironic appeal in Harold’s case as his father had been implicated in the blinding and death of the ætheling Alfred in 1036 and Harold could thus be cast not only as a traitor to William, but also as a member of the family that had betrayed Edward by murdering his brother. The acts by which Harold dies and their meaning are further highlighted by the sexless bodies of the dead and dismembered being robbed of their arms and armour in the lower border of the tapestry.88 It is very likely that the Bayeux tapestry originally ended with a scene of William enthroned, a scene which would have provided closure to the narrative, a visual balance to the scene of Edward enthroned with which that narrative began, and an unequivocal declaration of William’s status as Edward’s legitimate successor. Certainly William used the iconography of his c. 1069 seal and his coinage to help make exactly this point. On the obverse of the seal he appears enthroned with sword and orb in a design that was clearly influenced by that of Edward’s seal, and which is likely to be very much as he is thought to have appeared in the hypothetical last scene of the tapestry. The reverse of the seal showed William as a mounted warrior, a design which emphasised his position as a strong military leader (also a feature of the iconography of the tapestry), and perhaps one which also suggested that even though he was Edward’s successor he was a new king with new strengths and a new agenda. On the coins the profile crowned bust so popular with Anglo-Saxon kings from Æthelstan on was continued until 1068, but the dominant type was the frontal crowned bust (1068–80 and 1083–86), the type that had been introduced by Edward. The bust was, however, accompanied by new forms of regalia and other attributes, and new styles of cruciform designs were introduced on the reverse. The image of the ruler as author, translator, patron or collector of books that had found no favour with Edward also found no favour with William. The result, whether intentional or not, was that at least in art historical terms it remained an image linked specifically with the kings and queens of the West Saxon dynasty – including those like Emma who became a part of that dynasty through marriage. Emma was the mother of æthelings, and well aware of the power of that position, and thus able to establish her place in the West Saxon dynasty and genealogy in ways that Edith, for all her attempts at turning her father into the father of the country, never could. It is perhaps ironic that while the visual image of the king as author or literary patron was not a feature of art of the post-Conquest period, the tradition, and 1986), pp. 145–61; Lewis, Rhetoric of Power, p. 128. On the implications of castration and emasculation in general, see M. Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago, IL, 2001), esp. pp. 31–3, 49–69. 88 Legs as a sign of the sexed and gendered manly knight would continue as a part of English portraiture long after the Norman Conquest. See R. Dressler, ‘Cross-legged Knights and Signification in English Medieval Tomb Sculpture’, Studies in Iconography 22 (2000), 91–121.

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Edward, the Godwines and the end of Anglo-Saxon England indeed the Cerdicing dynasty, did live on across the Scottish border – the border across which Edward had tried so hard to extend English power – in Margaret of Scotland (c. 1046–93). Margaret was the daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha of Hungary, who married King Malcolm III of Scotland shortly after the Conquest, and who was renowned for her learning, her literacy and her love of books.89 According to the Vita S. Margarete, probably written by her chaplain Turgot between 1104 and 1107,90 and dedicated to her daughter, Queen Matilda of England,91 Margaret was like a new Alfred, able ‘amidst the manifold cares of state . . . [to] devote herself with admirable zeal to divine reading’.92 Like a new Osburh she was also portrayed in the Vita as the literate female teacher of the illiterate male – though in this story it is her husband rather than her son who is illiterate, the language she reads is Latin, and the texts are scripture. Like Alfred (fig. 1) – or Harthacnut and Edward (fig. 21) – Malcolm is attracted to the beautiful books held by the literate woman; however, because he remains illiterate he remains destined only to gaze upon the pictures and the pages: Thus [Malcolm], although illiterate, would often leaf through and gaze upon the books that she was accustomed to use for prayer and reading; and whenever he gathered from the queen that one of them was particularly dear to her, he too considered it as particularly precious, kissing it and often touching it. Sometimes he even summoned a goldsmith and ordered him to adorn that volume with gold and gems; and when it had been ornamented, the King himself used to carry the book to the Queen as a token of his devotion.93

In this story it is Margaret the Queen who is superior to her husband by virtue of her literacy, her learning, her virtue and above all her piety. The illiterate Scottish king is, as Richard Gameson notes, reduced to the role of her servant tending to and carrying her books.94 While it may be a hagiographical topos, and part of Turgot’s blatant attempts to turn his heroine into a saint, it is also both within the narrative of the Vita and the circle of courtly readers for whom the Vita was written, an image of Conquest. Here, the literate, Christian, ‘English’ queen conquers the illiterate, barbarian, Scottish king in the same way that her ancestor Alfred had begun the Cerdicing conquest of England through books and through learning.

89

90 91 92 93 94

Richard Gameson contends that Margaret’s reputation as a lover of books has more to do with the requirements of fiction and hagiography than with fact; nevertheless, it is the reputation that was passed on to her daughter and to history. See R. Gameson, ‘The Gospels of Margaret of Scotland and the Literacy of an Eleventh-Century Queen’, in Women and the Book: Assesing the Visual Evidence, ed. J. H. M. Taylor and L. Smith (London and Toronto, 1996), pp. 149–71. For an edition of the Life see Vita S. Margarete Scotorum Reginae, in Symeonis Dunelmensis Monachi Opera et Collectanea, I, ed. H. Hinde, Surtees Society 51 (1868), pp. 234–54. Henry I had of course married Matilda in part because she was a blood descendant of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Quoted in Gameson, ‘Gospels of Margaret of Scotland’, p. 157. Quoted in Gameson, ‘Gospels of Margaret of Scotland’, p. 158. Gameson, ‘Gospels of Margaret of Scotland’, p. 159.

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Conclusion Two of the themes that have run throughout this book and its consideration of the ruler portraits of Anglo-Saxon England are the themes of borders and of books, and in closing I would like to turn briefly to those two subjects once again. Borders are an integral part of the Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits, primarily because in their quest to expand the borders of Wessex to encompass all of England, indeed all of Britain, the Cerdicing kings from Alfred to Edgar consistently placed themselves in a border position. This type of political border position is very much a part of the Corpus 183 portrait of Æthelstan in which the West Saxon king is shown presenting to the Northumbrian saint his offering of a book that contains texts written in and about their respective realms. It is also a feature of the Liber Vitae portrait of Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut in which two foreign-born rulers are presented as members of the West Saxon dynasty, and of the frontispiece to the Encomium Emmae in which that same queen attempted to overcome the limitations of both gender roles and her political situation by presenting herself as co-ruler of all England. Edgar too attempted to extend his rule beyond the borders of his kingdom – as the Dee rowing episode makes clear – but it is as a mediator between church and state, heaven and earth, that we see him in his portraits. Edward the Confessor, however, was perhaps the greatest border dweller of all, standing as he does not only in a shadowy area between image and reality, but also standing at the end of the Cerdicing dynasty and the beginning of the Anglo-Norman era, his image borrowing from the portraits of his predecessors all the way back to Alfred, but also introducing new and influential changes. It was Edward’s image and Edward’s legacy that would be taken up and championed by the Normans. The authority of the king from Edward’s reign on would be conveyed primarily by the symbols of sword and sceptre rather than by the book. At the beginning of the book I wondered why it should be that there are so few surviving ruler portraits from Anglo-Saxon England, and why it should be that those that do survive are so markedly different from their continental and Byzantine counterparts. Why we have so few portraits is a question that ultimately cannot be answered, as it is impossible to estimate how many images may have been lost over the centuries, or to guess how many portraits of rival rulers might have been destroyed during the rise of Wessex. Why the surviving portraits take the form that they do, however, does I think have a lot to do with the role books and texts played in that same rise to power. Writing and the book were central not only to the image of Alfred, but also to the way in which he went about consolidating and expanding West Saxon power. It was to books, especially those by Bede and Gregory, that Alfred turned for the image of history and leadership that he would use as a model in shaping his own kingdom and its future. Whatever 174

Conclusion earlier written records might lie behind the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was Alfred who turned them into the written record of a nation – the earliest surviving Chronicle from the medieval West. The figure of Alfred was in turn central to the idea and image of kingdom and rulership that was taken up by his successors. Writing approximately one hundred years after Alfred’s reign, ealdorman Æthelweard, keenly aware of his own position amongst Alfred’s descendants, wrote of his death: ‘Then in the same year, there passed from the world the magnanimous Alfred, king of the Saxons, unshakeable pillar of the people of the west, a man full of justice, active in war, learned in speech, steeped in sacred literature above all things.’1 Alfred ‘the wise’ was even in his own day well on the way to becoming an icon of kingship.2 It was also under Alfred that genealogy seems to have come to play so prominent a part in the written record. Certainly royal genealogies had been recorded at least as early as the age of Bede, but it was under Alfred that the West Saxon genealogy was extended back in time to include Adam and the patriarchs of the Old Testament, and beyond them to Christ, giving the West Saxon kings a biblical if not a divine Christian ancestry and a position in universal history that set them apart from the kings of the other Anglo-Saxon royal houses. The purpose of royal genealogies – and regnal lists – was to map relationships not only of kinship but also of kingship. As I have argued in this book, the surviving Anglo-Saxon ruler portraits do much the same thing, deliberately borrowing from the iconography and compositions of the portraits that precede them to establish a visual genealogy of rulership, which, like the written version, has its origins in Christ. One could of course argue that the somewhat formulaic images of Carolingian and Ottonian rulers with their repetition of the enthroned king, or the ruler crowned by Christ, do the same, but they do so in a different way, one which emphasises the regalia of crown, throne and sceptre, not the book. As noted in the introduction, there is also a difference in the nature of the books in which the images appear. The Anglo-Saxon portraits are found in books that are themselves historical: two vitae (Æthelstan and Ælfgifu/Emma), a charter (Edgar), a liber vitae containing historical records (Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut) and a monastic rule (Edgar). The lost portrait of Æthelstan from Cotton Otho B.ix indicates that liturgical books may also have contained ruler portraits, but on the whole the evidence would seem to suggest that such books were in the minority. Two of the portraits – those of Æthelstan and Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut also appear in books that contain genealogies and/or regnal lists; indeed the portrait of Ælfgifu/Emma and Cnut with its inscribed names can be understood as forming a part of these very texts. The portraits are, in sum, about written history, they are a part of written history, and they are based on an Alfredian model of kingship that promoted the ruler as an author of historical texts, an author of written history; it is therefore not all that surprising that the image and authority of the book should occupy such a prominent place in them.

1 2

Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, p. 51. On this topic, see further Keynes, ‘Cult of Alfred’, p. 228.

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201

Index Aachen, 14, 97, 104 Aaron, 31 Abingdon Abbey, 85, 91, 125, 159 Acts of Constantinople, 54 Adam, 68 Adoration of the Magi, 153 adventus Saxonum, 18, 20, 64, 67, 71–2, 107 Ælfflæd, wife of King Edward the Elder, 57, 75, 76, 115 n.106 Ælfgifu, daughter of King Æthelred II, 120 Ælfgifu, daughter of King Edward the Elder, 120 Ælfgifu, first wife of King Æthelred II, 120 Ælfgifu of Northampton, 125, 147–9 Ælfgifu, wife of King Eadwig, 120 Ælfgifu, wife of King Edmund, 120 Ælfgifu/Emma, queen of the English, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 51, 115 n.166, 118, 119–32, 137–56, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 168, 172, 174, 175, (donations to Christ Church Canterbury) 121 n.10, (donations to Ely) 121 n.10 Ælfric, abbot of Eynsham, 29, 108 Ælfsige, scribe, 121 Ælfthryth, daughter of Alfred, 50 Ælfthryth, queen, second wife of King Edgar, 93, 111–13, 114, 118, 127, 129, 133 Ælfweard, son of King Edward the Elder, 73, 76 Ælfwine, abbot of the New Minster, Winchester, 60, 121, 125, 127, 130, 132, 140, 141 Ælfwold, cyricweard at the New Minster, Winchester, 131 Ælfwyn, daughter of Æthelflæd of Mercia, 51, 78 Æthelbald, king of Wessex, son of King Æthelwulf, 48, 50 Æthelbald, king of Mercia, 3 n.10 Æthelberht, king of Kent, 40, 41, 42, 139 Æthelburga of Lyminge, queen, second wife of King Edwin of Northumbria, 3 n.10, 16 Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, 21, 56, 68, 73, 77–8, 79, 102, 108 Æthelgar, abbot of the New Minster, 131, 140, 141 Æthelred, king of Wessex, son of King Æthelwulf, 44, 48 n.151 Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia, 27, 77–8, 108 Æthelred II, king of the English, 112, 113, 118, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127, 132, 133, 138, 141, 143, 144, 155, 159 n.14, 164, (coins of) 157, (laws of) 138–9 Æthelstan, king of the Anglo-Saxons and the English, 4, 5, 11, 14, 20, 51, 53–83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 96, 104, 107, 113, 145, 150, 158, 174, 175,

(charters of) 54 n.5, 77, 80–1, (coinage of) 66–7, 81–2, 103, 172, (court of) 67, (gifts to Chester-le-Street) 75–6, (laws of) 76, 79–83, 104 ‘Æthelstan A’, scribe 67 n.75, 79, 80, 103 Æthelswith, queen, wife of King Burgred of Mercia, 50, 74–5 Æthelthryth, St, 114, 119, 124 n.17, 128, 129, 151, 153 Æthelweard, abbot of Glastonbury, 117 Æthlelweard, son of King Alfred, 73 Æthelweard, ealdorman of the western provinces, 124 n.17, 175 (Chronicle of) 124 n.17, 175 Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93–9, 100, 101, 102, 106, 113, 115, 118, 125, 127, 128, 133, (‘Edgar’s Establishment of the Monasteries’) 100, 101, 102 Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, 14, 32, 48, 50 Agatha of Hungary, queen, 173 Agnes, empress, second wife of Emperor Henry III, 15 Agnus Dei, 12, 74 Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne, 78 Alcfrith of Deira, 16 Alcuin of York, 12 Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, 78 Aldred, priest of Chester-le-Street, 60–1, 69, 70 Alfred, aetheling, son of King Æthelred II, 119, 148–52, 172 Alfred, king of Wessex and the Anglo-Saxons, 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 16, 20, 21, 23–52, 53, 55, 56, 62, 64, 68–71, 72, 73, 76, 83, 84, 85, 87, 92, 101, 104, 106, 107, 113, 124 n.17, 132, 143, 144, 145, 154, 155, 156, 157, 161, 162, 173, 174, 175, (charters of) 41, (coins of) 25–8, 41, 43, 51, 102, 103, 105, (domboc) 38–42, 43 n.25, 44, 48, (illnesses of) 30, 45, 46 (translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies) 33; see also under Asser (Vita Alfredi), Gregory the Great Alfred Jewel, 3 n.10, 28–34, 48, 51, 62, 63, 114 Amesbury (Wiltshire), 113 Angelcynn (gens anglorum), 23, 35, 36–7, 41, 42, 168 angels, 86, 87, 88, 106, 126, 130, 142, 143, 167, 168, 169 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 16–20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 37, 41, 44, 68, 72, 77, 104, 107, 108, 109, 121 n.10, 124 n.17, 138, 148, 157 n.1, 162, 175, (Chronicle poems) 72, 88, 89, 105–6, 107, 108, 149–50, 159 n.14, 168

203

Index Anicia Juliana, 153 anti-monastic backlash, 84 apostles, 39, 40, 87, 88, 106, 133, 134 Apollinaris, St, 117 Ascension of Christ, 87, 88, 133 Asser, 4, 11, 27, 42–52, 62, 73, 101, 154, (Vita Alfredi) 13, 20–21, 41, 42–52, 68, 161, 162 Athelney (Somerset) 28, 103 Augustine, St (of Canterbury) 34, 74, 145 Augustus, emperor, 7–8 Augustus of the Primaporta, 7, 8 author (ruler as), 4, 5, 11, 34–42, 47, 49, 51, 53, 61–2, 68, 85, 95, 98, 118, 172, 175 baptism, 27, 41, 45, 74, 105 Baptism of Christ, 106 n.112 Bardney (Lincolnshire), 77 Barlow, Frank, 158, 166 Barnack (Northants.), 62 Barrow, Julia 109 Basil I, emperor, 9, 123 n.16 Bath (Somerset), 104 Bath Abbey, 54 Bathsheba, 30 Battle of Brunanburh, 71–2, 107, 108, 150 Bayeux Tapestry, 3 n.10, 16, 18, 19, 47, 156, 160, 168–72 Bede, 4, 16 n.58, 20, 27, 29, 34, 35, 36–7, 61, 63, 66, 151, 153, 167, 174, 175, (Historia ecclesiastica) 23, 25, 35, 44, 65, 66, 67, 128, (OE translation of) 24, 37, (prose Life of Cuthbert) 55, 61, 64, 65, (verse Life of Cuthbert) 55, 64, 65, 66 n.70 Bedingfield, Brad, 88 Belting, Hans, 2 Benedict, St, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 Benedictine Reform, 5, 84–118, 131 Benedictine Rule, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102 Benno of Trier, 115, 116 Beorhtric, king of Wessex, 50, 51 Beornstan, bishop of Winchester, 76 Bertha, queen, wife of Æthelberht, king of Kent, 20 Blackburn, Mark, 102 Blunt, C. E., 103 book, as attribute of kings, 4, 5, 11, 20, 51, 59, 60, 82, 84; as attribute of queens 5, 132, 155, 174–5 border space, 19, 36, 51, 53, 78, 109, 139–40, 150, 160, 174–5 Bradford Abbas (Dorset), 80 bretwaldas, 37 Brooks, Nicholas, 34 Brown, Shirley Ann, 170 Brunanburh, battle of, 54 n.5, 71, 150; see also Battle of Brunanburh Burgred, king of Mercia, 50, 74 Byrhtferth, monk of Ramsey, 104, 111, 113, 114, (Vita Sancti Oswaldi) 96, 104, 111, 115 Cædmon, 49 Caesar, Julius, 16 Camille, Michael, 82

Campbell, Alistair, 147, 151 Campbell, James, 42 Canterbury, 34, 54, 64, 83, 84, 93, 97, 98, 121 n.10, 126, 157 n.1, 164 Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, see Guy, bishop of Amiens Carr, Annemarie Weyl, 130, 131 castration, 169, 170, 171, 172 Ceolwulf, king of Mercia, 25, 26, 102 Cerdic, 18, 19 Cerdicing kings, 16–18, 23, 157, 173, 174 Charlemagne, king and emperor, 11, 14, 50, 55, 63, 104, (Libri Carolini) 12 Charles the Bald, king and emperor, 12–14, 15, 32, 58, 123 n.15 charters, 2, 15, 53, 76, 91, 99, (S 365) 73, (S 399) 75 n.118, (S 407) 80, (S 418) 80, (S 419) 80, (S 422) 80, (S 474) 75 n.118, (S 595) 91, (S 606) 100 n.71, (S 680) 91 n.31, (S 683) 91 n.31, (S 687) 91 n.31, (S 690) 91, 92, (S 691) 91 n.31, (S 692) 91 n.31, (S 693) 91 n.31, (S 703) 92, (S 925) 126, (S 1001) 163 n.50, (S 1006) 163 n.50, (S 1007) 163 n.50, (S 1008) 163 n.50, (S 1012) 163 n.50, (S 1013) 163 n.50, (S 1016) 163 n.50, (S 1151) 163 n.50, (S 1153) 163 n.50, 164, (S 1154) 163 n.50, (S 1228) 121 n.10, (S 1443) 145, (S 1454) 33 n.68, (S 1523) 121 n.10, (S 1719) 75 n.118, (subscriptions) 88, 89, 92–3 Chartres, 131 Chester, 78, 106, 108, 109 Chester-le-Street (Durham), 57 n.16, 58, 60, 61, 63, 65, 69, 75, 78 Chew Stoke (Somerset), 62 Childeric I, Merovingian ruler, 10 Chi-rho, 89, 91 Christ, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 28, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 58, 60, 61, 65, 67, 68, 71, 74, 81, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 96, 99, 105, 113, 115, 121, 123, 125, 128, 129, 130–4, 138, 151, 153, 155, 156, 161, 165, 168, 175 (as Good Shepherd) 32, 100 Clovis, king of the Franks, 10, 11 Cnut, king of the English, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 20, 118, 119–56, 157, 159, 160, 161, 164, 168, 174, 175, (coins of) 158, (court of) 156, (laws of) 134–9, 156, (seal of) 136, 159 Coatsworth, Elizabeth, 73 Cogitosus, Life of St Brigit, 127 n.32 colour, symbolism of, 31–2, 56–7, 86–7 Colyton (Devon), 62 Conrad II, emperor, 14, 126, 136, 137, 158 Constantine, emperor, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 124 n.16 Constantine IV (Pogonatus), emperor, 55 n.7 Constantine VII, emperor, 7 Constantinople, (basilica of the Virgin at Blachernai) 130, (church of the Holy Apostles) 10 n.31 coronation, 9, 14, 86, 104–7, 108, 109, 111–12, 114, 129, 134, 136, 137, 157, 169 Coronation of the Virgin, 113

204

Index Corvey, 97 Cotton, Joseph, 55 n.5, 57, 66 n.70, (Cotton fire) 4, 57 n.16 Cox, Bonita, 60 Crucifixion, 15, 58, 87 n.11, 90, 123 n.16, 124 n.16, 126, 130 crystal, 28–30, 32, 33 n.73 Cuthbert embroideries, 57, 62, 63, 73–6, 87, 103, 115 n.166 Cuthbert, St, 4, 53, 55, 57–9, 60, 61, 63–4, 65–6, 68–71, 75, 76, 77, 78–9, 82, 174, (coffin of) 78; see also Historia de Sancto Cuthberto Cuthburgh, queen, 19 Cwenburgh, queen, 19 Cynethryth, queen, wife of King Offa of Mercia, 50, 51, 119 Cynewulf, 29, 116 Cynric, 18 Danelaw, 109 David, king, 6, 9, 12, 30, 44, 48, (key of) 86 Denis, St, 115 Deshman, Robert, 1, 2, 60, 62, 86, 87, 94, 97, 130 Devil, 131, 132, 140, 142 Dolley, Michael, 102 Doubting of Thomas, 86 Dream of the Rood, 87 n.11 Dudo of Saint-Quentin, 131, (De moribus et acti primorum Normaniae Ducum) 146 Dunstan, St, 5, 92, 93, 95, 97, 98, 99, 112, 113, 125, 143 Eadburh, queen wife of King Beorhtric of Wessex, 50, 51 Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, 61 Eadred, king of the English, 104 Eadwig, king of the English, 91, 100 n.71, 102 Eadwig Basan, scribe 98–9 Eahlswith, wife of King Alfred, 25, 50, 51, 56 n.12, 73, 155 East Stour (Somerset), 62 Ecgberht, king of Wessex, 1, 26, 37, 51 Edgar, king of the English, 4, 5, 7, 11, 20, 51, 60, 83, 84–118, 123, 125, 129, 133, 137, 138, 150, 165, 168, 174, 175, (charters of) 85–93, (coins of) 84, 92, 102–4, 107, (coronation of) 86, 104, 108, 109, 113, 114, (Dee rowing episode) 108–9, 174, (gifts to Glastonbury) 117, (laws of) 92, 104–7, 109–11, 138, (poem on his coronation) 105–7, (poem on his death) 88, 89 ‘Edgar A’, scribe, 92 Edington, battle of, 68 Edith of Wilton, St, 114–16, 118, 131, 138, 165 Edith, queen of the English, 3 n.10, 19, 20, 49, 118, 156, 157–68, 172 Edith, wife of King Otto I, 14, 78 Edmund, king of the English, 69, 71, 107, 150 Edward the Confessor, king of the English, 3, 5, 147, 152, 154, 156, 157–68, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, (as ætheling) 119, 148, (coins of) 138, 157–8, 160, 163, 164, 166, 168, 172, (court of) 157, 165, 166, (laws of) 160, (seal of) 3 n.10, 20, 21, 23, 47, 118, 136, 160, (seal

of) 158–9, 163, 164, 166, 168; see also Vita Edwardi Edward the Elder, king of the Anglo-Saxons, 21, 51, 56, 68, 70–1, 73, 75, 76, 77, 84, 106, 107, 132, 144, 157 (charters of) 73, (coins of) 74, 102, 103, 105, (laws of) 56 Edward the Exile, 173 Edward the Martyr, king of the English, 112, 113, 114 Edwin, king of Northumbria, 3 n.10, 16, 26, 37 Egbert, bishop of York, 37 Einhard, 11, 44 Elene, 116 Elias, patriarch, 30 Ely Abbey, 114, 115 n.166, 121 n.10, 128–9, 149, 151, 152, (Liber Eliensis) 128, (statues of the Ely virgins) 124 n.17, 128 Embroidery, 166; see also Cuthbert embroideries, Bayeux Tapestry Emma, daughter of count Theobald of Blois and Chartres, 120 Emma, daughter of Hugh the Great, 120 Emma, queen of the English (see Ælfgifu/Emma) Emma, wife of King Lothar, 120 Emma, wife of Louis the German, 120 Emma, wife of Ralph of Burgundy, 120 n. 5 enamel, 30, 31–2, (cross of Matilda of Essen) 124 episcopal lists, 64, 66, 68 Ermintrude, wife of Charles the Bald, 123 n.15 Essen, 124, (Virgin of) 124 Estrith, sister of Cnut, 120 Eustace of Boulogne, 158 n.3 Exeter (Devon), 82 Exodus, 37, 40 Ezekiel, 29 evangelist symbols, 15, 95, 96, 142 Fall of man, 90, 91 Fall of the angels, 88, 90 fleur-de-lis, 32, 157, 159 foliate decoration, 32, 61, 63, 74, 87, 103, 114 Fontmell (Dorset), 80 Foys, Martin, 19, 168 Frealaf, 66 Frithestan, bishop of Winchester, 57, 73, 75, 115 n.166 Galla Placidia, empress, 116 n. 170, 116 n.173 Gameson, Richard, 49, 97, 173 Gannon, Anna, 26 genealogies (see also regnal lists), 2, 16, 18, 21, 44, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71–2, 107, 155, 156, 172, 174 Gerchow, Jan, 130 Gildas, 67 n.76 Gisela, empress, wife of Emperor Conrad II, 14, 15 Glastonbury Abbey, 3 n.10, 117 Gloucester, 77, 78, (St Oswald’s) 62, 77, 78 Godwine, earl of Wessex, 149–50, 157, 158 n.3, 160, 162, 163, 164, 169 Goscelin of Canterbury, 115, 126

205

Index Gregory the Great, pope, 20, 34, 35–7, 40, 74, 86 n.8, 101, 174, (Homiliarum in Ezechielem) 28–9, (Moralia in Job) 35, (Regula Pastoralis) 28, 30, 37, 42, 44, 45, 46, 74, 100, (Alfredian translation of) 23, 26, 28, 29, 30–2, 33–40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 51, 64, 101 Gretsch, Mechthild, 101 Gryffydd ap Rhydderch, king of Wales, 158 n.4 Gunnor, mother of Ælfgifu/Emma, wife of Richard I, count of Rouen, 120, 146 Guthram, king, 27, 41 Guy, bishop of Amiens, Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, 170, 171 Gyrth, brother of King Harold II, 170, 171 Gytha, wife of earl Godwine, 163 hagiography, 43, 44, 51, 58, 59, 61 Hahn, Cynthia, 59 Hallvarðr, skald. 139 hand of God, 12, 16, 74, 96 Harald Klak, king, 27 Hare, Michael, 77 Harold I (Harefoot), king of the English 125, 147–50, 157, (coins of) 158, 159 Harold II (Godwineson), king of the English, 3 n.10, 47 n.149, 137, 156, 162, 168–72 (coins of) 138 Harold, king of Denmark, 134 Harthacnut, king of the English, 5, 21, 147, 149, 152, 154, 157, 162, 173, (coins of) 157, (court of) 146 n.114, 147 Hastings, battle of, 160 n.25, 169, 170–2 Helena, mother of Constantine, 8, 51, 116, 124 n.16 Henry I, king of East Frankia/Germany, 14 Henry II, emperor, 126, 137, 158, 164 Henry III, emperor, 158 Henry of Huntingdon, 126 Hexham (Northumberland), 63 Hicks, George, 57 Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 57 n.16, 68–71 Hildibert of Metz, 14 Hohler, Christopher, 70, 74 Honorius, pope, 37 Howe, Nicholas, 40 Hrabanus Maurus, De Laudibus S Crucis, 11 Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, 78 Hugh Capet, 120 Hugh of Provence, 9 Hugh the great, 120 Ine, king of Wessex, 41, 42, 66 n.70, 145, (laws of) 38, 40, 41 Ingeld, 41 Irene, empress (780–802), 51 Isaiah, 74 Isidore of Seville, 49 Islamic art, 63 Israelites, 37, 40, 42 Ívarr, king of York, 139 Ivories, 123–4 n.16, 140, (Barbarini ivory) 8–9, (consular diptychs) 6–7, 10, (portrait of Constantine VII) 9, (portrait of Otto II and

Theophanu) 10, 14 (portrait of Romanos II and Eudokia) 9, 10, 12 James, Richard, 57 Jean, Duc de Berry, 82 Jeremiah, 74 John of Worcester, Chronicon ex chronicis, 108 John the Baptist, 74 John the Evangelist, 74 Judith, queen, wife of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, 14, 32, 48, 50 Justinian, emperor, 8–9, 12 Kantorowicz, Ernst, 95 Kempsall, Matthew, 30 Keynes, Simon, 24, 58, 83, 119, 132, 147 Kildare, 127 King’s Evil, 165 Kingston-upon-Thames (Surrey), 104 Kjølbye-Biddle, Birthe, 141 Knútsdrápa, 139 Kunigunde, queen, wife of Henry II if Germany, 15 language (and gender), 48, (as political tool) 24, 34, 36, 40, 41, 49, 81, 156 Lantred of Winchester, Translatio et Miracula s. Swithuni, 111 Lapidge, Michael, 24 Last Judgement, 80, 82, 83, 86, 88, 100, 123, 130, 131, 132, 140–3, 145 Lavezzo, Kathy, 24 Laurence, St, 74, 116 n.170 laws, Anglo-Saxon (general) 2, (Lombard) 39 Lees, Clare, 49 Leges Edwardi Confessori, 160 n.22 Leo IV, pope, 104 Leofric, brother of King Harold II, 170 Lerer, Seth, 33 Leyser, Karl, 15 Littleton Crew (Wilts.), 62 London, 127, 164, (St Paul’s) 164; see also Westminster Lothar, king of the West Franks, 120 Lothar II, king, 33 n.73 Louis the German, 120 Louis the Pious, king and emperor, 11, 12, 27, 44, 47 n.149, 55, 93, 94 Lyon, C. S. S., 103 Malcolm III, king of Scotland, 173 Maldon, battle of, 111 manuscripts: Aachen, Cathedral Treasury (Aachen Gospels), 15, 95–6; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, phil. 1676, 56 n.13; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 12, 101; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, 138; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183, 4, 55–68, 87, 103, 174, 175; Durham, Cathedral Library B.iii 32 (Regularis Concordia), 93 n.43; Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Hs. 17, 56 n.23; London, BL, Add. 33241 (Encomium Emmae), 4, 5, 146–55, 159, 160, 161, 162, 174, 175; London, BL, Add. 34890 (Grimbald Gospels), 140; London, BL, Add. 49598

206

Index (Benedictional of Æthelwold), 85, 86 n.7, 87, 88, 100, 106 n.112, 113, 114, 119, 128, 130, 133, 134, 137; London, BL, Arundel 155 (Arundel Pslater), 98; London, BL, Cotton Claudius B.iv (Old English Hexateuch), 135 n.77, 153; London, BL, Cotton Claudius B.v, 54, 55; London, BL, Cotton Domition A.vii (Durham Liber Vitae), 71, 87; London, BL, Cotton Galba A.xviii (Galba Psalter), 56 n.12, 62, 87; London, BL, Cotton Nero D.iv (Lindisfarne Gospels), 60–1, 69–70; London, BL, Cotton Otho B.ii, 101; London, BL, Cotton Otho B.ix, 4, 57–9, 69, 86, 158, 175; London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A.ii, 54, 61, 83; London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A.iii (Regularis Concordia), 4, 5, 11, 84, 93–9, 125, 175; London, BL, Cotton Tiberius B.v, 66 n.70, 68; London, BL, Cotton Titus D.xxvii and xxvi (Ælfwine’s Prayerbook), 60, 121, 126 n.24, 127, 129–30; London, BL, Cotton Vespasian A.viii (New Minster Charter), 4, 5, 7, 11, 60, 84, 85–93, 94, 95, 97, 103, 106, 114, 115, 118, 125, 133, 134, 137, 138, 159, 168, 175; London, BL, Cotton Vespasian B.vi, 66 n.69, 66 n.70, 66 n.72, 67 n.79; London, BL, Stowe 944 (Liber Vitae of New Minster and Hyde Abbey), 4, 5, 7, 10, 60, 118, 121–45, 146, 154–5, 159, 163, 164, 168, 174, 175; London, Lambeth Palace 1370 (MacDurnan Gospels), 54; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4453 (Gospels of Otto III), 16; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 14000 (Codex Aureus of St Emmeram), 12, 87 n.10; Munich, Schatzkammer der Residenz (Prayerbook of Charles the Bald), 13, 15, 58; Oxford, Bodl. Lib., Junius 11, 153; Paris, BN, gr. 139 (Paris Psalter), 9; Paris, BN, lat. 1 (Vivian Bible), 12, 15; Paris, BN, lat. 266 (Lothar Gospels), 12; Paris, BN, lat. 1141, 12 n.39; Paris, BN, lat. 1152 (Psalter of Charles the Bald), 13; Paris, BN, lat. 2423 (Hrabanus Maurus), 22; Paris, BN, lat. 2825, 66 n.70; Paris, BN, lat. 4404 (Breviary of Alaric), 13; Paris, BN, lat. 9654, 13; Paris, BN, lat. 10525, 30 n.44; Pommersfelden, Graf von Schornborn’sche Schlossbibliothek 347, 15; Rome, Abbazia di San Paolo (Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura), 123 n.15; Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, Reg. lat. 124 (Hrabanus Maurus), 11; Rossano, Cathedral Treasury (Rossano Gospels), 87 n.9; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria K II.20 (Hrabanus Maurus), 11; Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, cod. lat. 4922 (vita of Matilda of Tuscany), 152; Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Ottob. lat. 74, 135 n.76; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. med. gr. 1 (Vienna Dioscurides), 56 n.13, 152–3; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. theol. gr. 31 (Vienna Genesis), 87 n.9; Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer (Coronation

Gospels), 87 n.10; York, Chapter Library, Add. 1 (York Gospels), 134 mappamundi, 68 Margaret, sister of Cnut, see Estrith Margaret of Scotland, queen, 173 Mary, 8, 9, 86–90, 91, 97, 113, 118, 123, 125, 127–33, 137, 141, 142, 146, 151, 153, 155, 156, 165, (tunic of) 131, (veil of) 130 Matilda, abbess of Essen, 124 Matilda, countess of Tuscany, 152 Matilda, queen of England, 173 Mayr-Harting, Henry, 15 memory, 16, 35–6, 39, 40, 42, 51, 53, 123, 146, 154 metalwork, 62, 124, (Brussels reliquary cross) 87 n.11, (Lothar cross) 7–8, (medallion of Theodoric) 10, (Minster Lovell Jewel) 32, (ring of Æthelswith) 74–5, (ring of Æthelwulf) 32; see also Alfred Jewel Metcalf, D. M., 102 Michael, St, 131, 132, 141, 142, 143 miles Christi, 6, 11 mirrors for princes texts, 44 Moses, 39, 40 names and naming, 120, 121, 123, 132, 142, 147, 161 n.29, 165, 170, 171 Nees, Lawrence, 70 Nelson, Janet, 4, 11, 112 Norman Conquest, 3, 20, 97, 116, 173 North Petherton (Somerset), 28 North Stoneham (Hants), 80 numismatics (general), 25, (Anglo-Saxon) 1, 2, 25–8, 51, 79, 82, 129, 137, 138, 158, 172, (Byzantine) 1, 9, 51, 119, 127 n.33, (coin hoards) 25, (Ottonian) 158 (Roman) 6, 10, 25–7; see also under Alfred, Æthelred II, Æthelstan, Cnut, Edgar, Edward the Confessor, Edward the Elder, Harold I, Harold II, Harthacnut Odo, bishop of Bayeux, 171 Offa, king of Mercia, 26, 42, 50, 51, 119, (laws of) 40, 41 Omer, St, 166 Orchard, Andy, 152 ordines, 2, 12 n.40, 112, 129, 130, 134 origin legends, (Anglo-Saxon) 21, 40, (Frankish) 11 Osburh, wife of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, mother of king Alfred, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 154, 155, 156, 173 Oswald, St, 77, 78, 79, 107 n.113, 115; see also Vita Sancti Oswaldi Otto I, king and emperor, 14, 78, 96, 104 Otto II, king and emperor, 7, 10, 14, 107 n.113 Otto III, king and emperor, 7, 8, 15, 95, 96 Otto, duke of Bavaria, 124 Overing, Gillian, 49 Oxford, 62, 138 palaces, 2, 10, 14, 97, 104, 127 Paris, church of the Holy Apostles, 10 Parker, Matthew, 64

207

Index Patronage, 4, 5, 8, 45, 49, 56, 61–2, 65, 68–70, 73–9, 81–3, 115, 121, 123–6, 130, 133, 138, 143, 151, 156, 161, 163, 164, 165, 172 Paul, St, 31, 131 Pavia, 50, 74, (palace of Theodoric) 10 Pentecost, 39, 40, 88, 105, 106, 133 Peter, deacon, 73 Peter, St, 8, 86, 87, 89, 90, 97, 123, 125, 127, 131, 133, 138, 142, 143, 161, 162, 164, (key of) 86, 87, 131, 133, 134, 142, 143 Pliny, 29, 67 n.76 poetry, (Anglo-Saxon) 47, 49, (skaldic) 135, 139 portrait, definition of, 1–2 Prior’s Barton (Winchester), 62 queens and queenship, (general) 6, 8, 50, (Anglo-Saxon) 1, 2, 3, 19, 21, 50–1, 85, 111–16, 119–56, (Carolingian) 14, (Ottonian) 14 Radegunde, St, 152 Ralph of Burgundy, 120 n.5 Ravenna, (palace of Theodoric) 10, (S. Apollinare in Classe) 55 n.7, (S. Croce) 116 n. 170, (S. Vitale) 9, 12, 55 n.7 Raw, Barbara, 130, 141 regalia, 9, 32, (crowns) 4, 15, 56, 57, 58, 59, 67, 82, 86, 87, 90, 98, 103, 125, 126, 129, 130, 132, 133, 137, 138, 152, 158, 159, 160, 175, (diadems) 25, 88, 98, 103, 105, 106 n.112, 126 n.26, 129, (orbs) 158, 159, 163, 169, 172, (sceptres) 57, 58, 106 n.112, 134, 158, 159, 160, 169, 175; see also swords regnal lists, 16, 64, 65, 66, 68, 145, 175; see also genealogies Regularis Concordia, 83, 93–9, 103, 113, 115; see also London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A.iii Reichenau, 15 relics, 53, 59, 61, 65, 77, 82, 117, 124, 125, 130, 131, 160, 168, (relic lists) 82 Reuter, Tim, 16 Rys ap Rhydderch, 157–8 Richard I, count of Rouen, 120 Richildis, queen, wife of Charles the Bald, 123 n.15 Robert, king of the West Franks, 120 n. 5 Robert of Jumièges, archbishop of Canterbury, 158 n.3, 162 n.41 Rogantiontide, 88 Roger of Wendover, 109 Rollason, David, 59, 82 Rollo (Hrólf), count of Rouen, 131 Rome, 20, 24–5, 28, 34, 36, 40, 41, 42, 55, 74, 104, 107 n.113, 108, 136, 137, 159, (arch of Constantine) 7, (Basilica Nova of Maxentius and Constantine) 7, (Lateran Baptistry) 116, (Old St Peter’s) 8, 64, 65, 126, 136, 137 Rothari, king of the Lombards, 39 Rule of St Benedict (see Benedictine Rule) ruler portraits, (Byzantine) 2, 6, 8–9, 11, 14, 15–16, 55, 85, 123, 133, 159, 174, (Carolingian) 2, 4, 6, 11–16, 55, 85, 152, 153, (Merovingian) 10, (Ottonian) 2, 4, 6, 7, 9–10,

14–16, 96, 123, 126, 133, 135, 153, 158, 159, 175, (Roman) 5, 6–8, 10, 55, 158, (Salian) 4, 14, 15 Saint-Bertin, 146 Saint-Omer, 146 sculpture (stone), 62, 63, 77, (Bewcastle cross) 16, 47 n.149, 128, (Hackness cross) 3 n.10, 16, (Repton stone) 3 n.10, (Rothbury cross) 140–1 seals, 14, 32, 114, 118, 135, 136, 158–9, 163, 164, 172; see also Cnut, Edward the Confessor Seaxburh, queen, 19 Semiramis, 151 Shaftesbury Abbey, 80 Sherborne Abbey, 80 Short, Ian, 120 Simpson, Luisella, 69 Sixtus, St, 74 Smith, Thomas, 57 Solomon, 44, 48 South, Ted Johnson, 69 Spearhavoc, abbot of Abingdon, 159 Stafford, Pauline, 120, 164, 165 Stewart, C. S. S., 103 Story, Joanna, 50 Swithun, St, 108, 111 sword (as royal attribute), 125, 131, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 144, 156, 158, 160, 163, 170, 172 Thacker, Alan, 76 Thanet, 109 Theobald, count of Blois and Chartres, 120 Theodora, empress, wife of Emperor Justinian, 9 Theophanu, empress, wife of Otto II, 10, 14, 15 Thorkell, earl, 134 Thorney Abbey, 115 titles, royal, 9, 14, 15, 25, 27, 41, 43, 44, 50, 51, 54–5, 67, 81, 83, 86, 88, 91, 93, 100, 114, 121, 125, 169, 170 Tostig, earl, 162 Tours school (of manuscript illumination), 62 translation, 24, 32, 34, 36–7, 39, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 172 tree of life, 32, 63 Trier, 116 Trinity, 60, 141, 142 Turgot, Vita S. Margarete, 173 typology, 8, 32, 37 Vikings, 25, 45, 46, 68, 150, 156 Vincent St, 117, 125 vine-scroll, see foliate decoration Vita Alfredi (see Asser) Vita Edwardi, 47 n.149, 157 n.1, 158 n.8, 159, 160–9 Vita Gregorii, 29, 53 Vita S. Margarete (see Turgot) voice, 34, 36, 49, 92, 131, 155, 171 Walcher, bishop, 59 n.28, 65 wall painting, 62, 115–16 Wanley, Humphrey, 57 Warren, Michelle, 139 Wells (Somerset), 62

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Index Westminster, 157, 160, 162, 164, 166–7 Wherwell (Hants), 113 Whitby (Yorkshire), 128 William of Malmesbury, 68, 75 n.118, 76, 77, 108, 113, 114, 117, 168 William the Conqueror, 119, 156, 169, 170, 171, 172, (coins of) 172, (seal of) 172 Wilton, 114–16, 158 n.3, 161, 164, 165 Winchester, 62, 75, 76, 103, 123, 126, 127, 128, 139, 155, 163, (New Minster) 73, 75, 76, 85,

86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 127, 130–2, 138, 140–4, 164, (Old Minster) 73, 97, 107, 163, 164 witan, 41, 49, 56 Withers, Benjamin, 95 Woden, 18 Worcester, 101 Wormald, Patrick, 24, 44, 79, 110, 111, 139 Wulfstan II, archbishop of York, 138 York, 80, 139

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