Ælfweard Saxon (King) of WESSEX

Ælfweard (c.902 - 2 August 924) was the second son of Edward the Elder, the eldest born to his second wife Ælfflæd. Kingship and death The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply states that Ælfweard died soon after his father's death on 17 July 924 and that they were buried together at Winchester. Manuscript D of the Chronicle specifies that he outlived his father by only 16 days. No reign is explicitly attributed to him here. However, a list of West-Saxon kings in the 12th-century Textus Roffensis[1] mentions him as his father's successor, with a reign of four weeks.[2] He is also described as king in the New Minster Liber Vitae,[3] an 11th-century source based in part on earlier material.[4] On the other hand, William of Malmesbury, relying on a poem, related that Edward's eldest son (by his first wife Ecgwynn), Æthelstan, succeeded directly under the terms of King Alfred's will (since lost).[5] The poem had once been considered a near-contemporary authority, but Michael Lapidge has shown this to be based on a misunderstanding of William's reference to "a certain obviously ancient book".[6] This conflicting documentation has led to alternative interpretations, some modern historians concluding that he had succeeded his father in preference to his older half-brother Æthelstan, while others maintain that Æthelstan was the only heir to his father.[5] Alternatively, a divided rule has been suggested, since the so-called Mercian register of the Chronicle reports that Æthelstan became king of the Mercians, and William of Malmesbury, though denying a reign for Ælfweard, reports that Æthelstan was educated at the Mercian court of his aunt Æthelflæd.[2][5][7] In the view of Simon Keynes, Ælfweard was recognised as king in Wessex and Æthelstan in Mercia, and although it is possible that Edward intended a division of the kingdom after his death, it is more likely that the leaders of Wessex chose Ælfweard and Mercia set up Æthelstan in opposition.[8] Ælfweard died only 16 days after his father, on 2 August 924 at Oxford, and was buried at the New Minster, Winchester. Æthelstan still had difficulty in securing acceptance in Wessex, and he was not crowned king of the Anglo-Saxons until 4 September 925.[8][9] Notes Jump up ^ (Rochester, Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5, fols. 7v-8r). ^ Jump up to: a b Yorke, Bishop Æthelwold. p. 71. Jump up ^ f. 9v, cited by Yorke. Jump up ^ Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. ^ Jump up to: a b c Williams, "Some Notes", pp. 149-50. Jump up ^ Lapidge, "Some Latin poems as evidence for the reign of Athelstan." 50-1. Jump up ^ Walker, Mercia and the Making of England. p. 127. ^ Jump up to: a b Keynes, 'Rulers of the English', p. 514 Jump up ^ Foot, Æthelstan, p. 17 References Foot, Sarah (2011). Æthelstan: the first king of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12535-1. Keynes, Simon (2001). "Rulers of the English, c.450-1066". In Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes and Donald Scragg. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1. Lapidge, Michael. "Some Latin Poems as Evidence for the Reign of Athelstan." In Anglo-Latin Literature 900-1066, ed. M. Lapidge. London, 1993. Miller, Sean, "Æthelstan" in M. Lapidge et al. (eds), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell, London, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0 Walker, Ian. Mercia and the Making of England. Sutton: Stroud, 2000. ISBN 0-7509-2131-5. Williams, Ann, "Some Notes and Considerations on Problems Connected with the English Royal Succession, 860-1066", Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1978, R. Allen Brown, ed., Boydell & Brewer, 1979, 144-167. Yorke, Barbara. Bishop Æthelwold. His Career and Influence. Woodbridge, 1988. "Ælfweard 4 (male)." Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. Accessed: 2009-04-08. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comments