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Edward the Martyr

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Edward the Martyr

Edward the Martyr (c. 962 – 18 March 978) was King of the English from 8 July 975 until he was killed in 978. He was the eldest son of King Edgar (r. 959–975). On Edgar's death, the succession to the throne was contested between Edward's supporters and those of his younger half-brother, the future King Æthelred the Unready. As they were both children, it is unlikely that they played an active role in the dispute, which was probably between rival family alliances. Edward's principal supporters were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, while Æthelred was backed by his mother, Queen Ælfthryth and her friend Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. The dispute was quickly settled. Edward was chosen as king and Æthelred received the lands traditionally allocated to the king's eldest son in compensation. Edgar had been a strong and overbearing king and a supporter of the monastic reform movement. He had forced the lay nobility and secular clergy to surrender land and sell it at low prices to the monasteries. Æthelwold had been the most active and ruthless in seizing land for his monasteries with Edgar's assistance. The nobles took advantage of Edgar's death to get their lands back, mainly by legal actions but sometimes by force. The leading magnates were split into two factions, the supporters of Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, and Æthelwine, who both seized some monastic lands which they believed belonged to them, but also estates claimed by their rivals. The disputes never led to warfare. Edward's short reign was brought to an end by his murder in March 978 in unclear circumstances. He was killed on the Dowager Queen Ælfthryth's estate at the Gap of Corfe in Dorset, and hurriedly buried at Wareham. A year later, his body was translated with great ceremony to Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset. Contemporary writers do not name the murderer, but almost all narratives in the period after the Norman Conquest name Ælfthryth. Some modern historians agree, but others do not. Another theory is that the killers were thegns of Æthelred, probably acting without orders. Medieval kings were believed to be sacrosanct, and Edward's murder deeply troubled contemporaries who regarded it as a mortal sin. He soon came to be revered as a saint, and his feast of 18 March is listed in the festal calendar of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Edward was known in his own time for physical and verbal abuse of his associates and companions, and historians consider his veneration thoroughly undeserved.

Infobox

Reign
8 July 975 – 18 March 978
Predecessor
Edgar
Successor
Æthelred II
Born
c. 962
Died
18 March 978 (aged about 16)Corfe, Dorset
Burial
Wareham, Dorset; later Shaftesbury, Dorset
House
Wessex
Father
Edgar
Mother
Æthelflæd (probably)

Tables

· External links
Regnal titles
Regnal titles
Edward the Martyr House of WessexBorn: c. 962 Died: 18 March 978
Regnal titles
Preceded byEdgar
Preceded byEdgar
Edward the Martyr House of WessexBorn: c. 962 Died: 18 March 978
Preceded byEdgar
Edward the Martyr House of WessexBorn: c. 962 Died: 18 March 978
King of England 975–978
Edward the Martyr House of WessexBorn: c. 962 Died: 18 March 978
Succeeded byÆthelred the Unready
Edward the Martyr House of WessexBorn: c. 962 Died: 18 March 978
Regnal titles
Preceded byEdgar
King of England 975–978
Succeeded byÆthelred the Unready

References

  1. A charter's S number is its number in Peter Sawyer's catalogue of Anglo-Saxon charters, available online at the Electron
    https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/about/index.html
  2. Fell and Ridyard think that the Passio was probably written by Goscelin, but Paul Hayward considers this "highly unlikel
  3. Ealdorman was the second rank of the lay aristocracy below the king. They governed large areas as the king's local repre
  4. Æthelstan was known as the Half-King because kings were said to rely on his advice. He retired in 957 and was succeeded
  5. The twelfth century Liber Eliensis states that Edgar later claimed that Ordmær and Ealde bequeathed the land at Hatfield
  6. Ann Williams disputes the consensus, suggesting that Edward was a son of Wulfthryth and thus a full brother of Edith. Sh
  7. Historians do not agree on Wulfthryth's status. Rosalind Love refers to her as a concubine, whereas her status as wife i
  8. In his will, Ælfhere's brother Ælfheah described Ælfthryth as his gefædera, a word which denotes the relationship betwee
  9. Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are conventionally labelled ASC A to ASC F.
  10. The historian David Dumville argues that Edward was killed on 18 March 979, but most historians give 978, and Levi Roach
  11. The medieval Latin scholar Michael Lapidge argues that parallels between the biblical description of the betrayal of Chr
  12. ASC D and E are together known as the northern recension because they contain material of northern interest not found in
  13. Roach 2016, p. 68.
  14. Williams 2003, p. 10; Charter S 937; Whitelock 1979, pp. 582–584 (no. 123).
  15. Lapidge 2009, pp. lxvii, 122–145.
  16. Whitelock 1979, pp. 109–117, 228–231.
  17. Fell 1971, p. xx; Ridyard 1988, pp. 48–49; Hayward 1999, pp. 85–86 and n. 85.
  18. Fell 1971; Mynors, Thomson & Winterbottom 1998, pp. 260–269 (159.2-163); Darlington & McGurk 1995, pp. 416–417, 426–431.
  19. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 9, 12–13.
  20. Miller 2011; Foot 2011.
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  22. Miller 2014a, pp. 154–155.
  23. Williams 2004b; Keynes 2004.
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  28. Miller 2014d, p. 19; Lapidge 2009, pp. 84–87; Lapidge 2014, p. 20.
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  33. Hart 1992, p. 586.
  34. Williams 2003, p. 3; Darlington & McGurk 1995, pp. 416–417.
  35. Williams 2014; Hart 1992, p. 586.
  36. Hart 1992, pp. 462–463, 586; Fairweather 2005, pp. 103–104.
  37. Williams 2003, pp. 6, 159 n. 33.
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  41. Yorke 2004b.
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  46. Yorke 2008, pp. 148–149; Rumble 2002, pp. 93–94; Charter S 745.
  47. Yorke 1988, p. 86.
  48. Yorke 2008, p. 149.
  49. Hart 2007; Miller 2014c, p. 167.
  50. Fisher 1952, pp. 254–255; Miller 2014c, p. 167; Williams 2003, p. 9.
  51. Darlington & McGurk 1995, pp. 426–427.
  52. Williams 2003, pp. 2, 9; Whitelock 1930, pp. 22–23.
  53. Williams 2003, p. 9.
  54. Watson 2021, p. 2; Lapidge 2009, pp. 136–139.
  55. Keynes 2003, p. xxi.
  56. Stenton 1971, p. 372.
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  59. Keynes 2013, pp. 148, 150.
  60. Cubitt 2008, p. 145.
  61. Lapidge 2009, pp. xx, lxxi, lxxiii; Miller 2014c, p. 167; Williams 2003, p. 10.
  62. Whitelock 1979, pp. 109–117.
  63. Whitelock 1979, p. 229; Lapidge 2009, pp. 130–131.
  64. Lapidge 2009, pp. 122–125.
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  66. Miller 2014c, p. 168.
  67. Williams 2003, p. 10.
  68. Williams 2003, pp. 10–11.
  69. Hart 1992, p. 151.
  70. Molyneaux 2015, p. 34.
  71. Roach 2013, pp. 67, 240; Williams 2003, p. 11.
  72. Keynes 2008, p. 53; Hart 2005; Keynes 2002, Tables LVI (3 of 3), LVIII.
  73. Roach 2016, pp. 68–70.
  74. Keynes 2008, p. 53.
  75. Williams 2003, p. 11; Whitelock 1979, pp. 229–230.
  76. Keynes 2005, p. 57; Charter S 1450.
  77. Keynes 1980, p. 84 and n. 1; Keynes 2002, Table LVIII; Hart 1975, pp. 26–27.
  78. Kelly 2001, pp. 454–456; Charter S 828; Charter S 829.
  79. Keynes 1980, p. 84 n. 1; Hart 1975, p. 27 n. 1; Charter S 831.
  80. Whitelock 1979, pp. 566–567 (no. 115, translation of charter); Charter S 832.
  81. Charter S 830; Hart 1975, pp. 26–27, n. 4; Chaplais 1966, pp. 15–16.
  82. Naismith 2017, pp. 732–733 (coin 1777).
  83. Naismith 2021, p. 386.
  84. Naismith 2017, pp. 260–261, 732–733.
  85. Naismith 2017, p. 249.
  86. Naismith 2017, p. 252.
  87. Naismith 2017, p. 261.
  88. Dumville 2007, pp. 269–283; Keynes 2012b, p. 137; Marafioti 2014, p. 162 n. 3.
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  90. Lapidge 2009, pp. 138–141.
  91. Lapidge 1996, pp. 79–80.
  92. Yorke 1999, p. 102; Roach 2016, p. 77.
  93. Whitelock 1979, p. 113.
  94. Whitelock 1979, pp. 230–231; Williams 2003, p. 11.
  95. Dumville 2007, pp. 277–280; Keynes 2012a, p. 117.
  96. Fell 1971, p. xvi; Roach 2016, pp. 74–76; Darlington & McGurk 1995, pp. 428–429.
  97. Mynors, Thomson & Winterbottom 1998, pp. 264–265 (162.2); Greenway 1996, pp. 324–325.
  98. Fell 1971, p. xviii; Keynes 1980, p. 172.
  99. Stafford 2004; Higham 1997, p. 14.
  100. Lawson 2011, p. 45.
  101. Roach 2016, pp. 75–76.
  102. Fell 1978, pp. 8–11.
  103. Yorke 1999, p. 101.
  104. Thacker 1996, pp. 248–249; John 1996, p. 120.
  105. Roach 2016, p. 76.
  106. Dumville 2007, p. 280.
  107. Yorke 1999, p. 107.
  108. Ryan 2013, p. 342.
  109. Williams 2003, p. 12.
  110. Roach 2016, pp. 74–75.
  111. Williams 2003, p. 14; Marafioti 2014, pp. 162–164.
  112. Whitelock 1979, pp. 230–231.
  113. Marafioti 2014, p. 162; Lapidge 2009, pp. 140–143.
  114. Keynes 1999, p. 49.
  115. Keynes 1980, p. 167.
  116. Keynes 2012a, p. 124; Whitelock 1979, p. 931.
  117. Marafioti 2014, pp. 168–169; Ridyard 1988, p. 155.
  118. Ridyard 1988, p. 156; Williams 2003, pp. 15–16; Foot 2000, p. 170.
  119. Hayward 1999, pp. 86–87.
  120. Williams 2003, p. 14.
  121. Keynes 2012a, p. 125.
  122. Keynes 2012a, pp. 119, 122.
  123. Williams 2003, p. 16; Ridyard 1988, pp. 156–157; Charter S 899.
  124. Foot 2000, pp. 170–171; Kelly 1996, pp. 119–120.
  125. Lapidge 2009, pp. 144–145; Williams 2003, p. 15.
  126. Williams 2003, pp. 122–123; Whitelock 1979, p. 931.
  127. Watson 2021, pp. 10–11; Rollason 1989, pp. 142–143.
  128. Williams 2003, p. 14; Thacker 1996, p. 267; Wormald 1978, pp. 53–54; Keynes 1999, pp. 53, 70 n. 130; Keynes 2012a, p. 12
  129. Rollason 1989, p. 144.
  130. Cubitt 2000, p. 67.
  131. Ridyard 1988, p. 158.
  132. Stenton 1971, pp. 373–374.
  133. Ridyard 1988, pp. 159–162.
  134. Keynes 1980, p. 171.
  135. Bugyis 2019, p. 225 and n. 1; Winterbottom 2007, pp. 294–297 (ii.86.6); Marafioti 2014, pp. 214–215.
  136. Yorke 2021, p. 68.
  137. Keynes 1999, pp. 55–56.
  138. Yorke 1999, p. 99.
  139. Watson 2021, pp. 9–10, 14–17.
  140. Watson 2021, p. 1.
  141. Barlow 1997, p. 4.
  142. Watson 2021, p. 19.
  143. Keen 1999, pp. 5–7; Parlby 2003, p. 37.
  144. Stowell 1971, p. 160; Lavelle 2008, p. 44.
  145. Keynes 1999, pp. 55, 70 n. 132.
  146. Keynes 1999, pp. 54–55; Rahtz 1989, p. 17; Gem 1984, p. 11.
  147. Stowell 1971, p. 141.
  148. Rahtz 1989, p. 17.
  149. Rahtz 1989, p. 17; Keynes 1984, p. 11.
  150. Keynes 1999, pp. 54–55; Yorke 1999, pp. 112–113; Watson 2021, pp. 17–18.
  151. Historic England, Church of St Edward the Martyr, Goathurst.
  152. Historic England, Church of St Edward the Martyr, Cambridge.
  153. Church of St Edward, King and Martyr, Corfe Castle.
  154. Church of St Edward King & Martyr, Castle Donington.
  155. Church of St. Edward the Martyr, New York.
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