Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- PART I CNUT'S CONQUEST
- 1 Landholding and alliance in late Saxon England
- 2 Cnut's conquest and the destruction of the royal kindred
- 3 New men and the waning of the West Saxon monarchy
- PART II THE NORMAN CONQUEST
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - New men and the waning of the West Saxon monarchy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- PART I CNUT'S CONQUEST
- 1 Landholding and alliance in late Saxon England
- 2 Cnut's conquest and the destruction of the royal kindred
- 3 New men and the waning of the West Saxon monarchy
- PART II THE NORMAN CONQUEST
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Edward the Confessor's reign is not an easy one to study. The twenty-three years Edward ruled are represented by only sixty-four charters, and of these, twenty-nine are dubiously worded, highly interpolated, or outright forgeries. There is a fine run of writs, a hundred in all, but half are addressed to just three monasteries – Westminster Abbey, Bury St Edmunds and Wells – and unlike their Norman successors, these instruments include no witness lists and so preserve no record of the king's advisers. The narrative sources for the reign, however, are quite full by English standards. The various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle give interestingly divergent and biased accounts of important events in the reign, in particular Earl Godwine's rebellion in 1051, his family's reinstatement in 1052, and the 1065 Northumbrian revolt. There is also a contemporary biography of the Confessor, the Vita Ædwardi Regis, which provides a glimpse of the English court and its habitués on the eve of the Norman Conquest. Both the chronicles and the biography preserve disturbing hints of the overweening power of Cnut's most famous creation, Earl Godwine, and of the weakness of the Dane's eventual successor, King Edward. Other evidence, however, presents a different picture. The coinage of the Confessor's reign, terrible in the early years, but impressively reformed in the early 1050s, points to the peace and prosperity of the period and highlights the remarkable efficiency of late Saxon royal administration.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Kings and Lords in Conquest England , pp. 53 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991