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The cults of murdered royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

D. W. Rollason
D. W. Rollason
Affiliation:
The University of Durham
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Extract

Murder by fellow Christians for secular motives may seem to us an improbable qualification for sanctity. To the Anglo-Saxons, however, the matter evidently appeared differently, for several members of pre-Conquest royal families seem to have been regarded as saints chiefly because of their violent ends at the hands of Christian assassins. The lives and cults of some of these murdered royal saints are well attested in pre-Conquest sources. Others, however, are known chiefly from post-Conquest texts which are mainly hagiographical in character and which were written considerably later than the events which they describe. For these reasons these latter texts have not generally been taken seriously as historical sources and the saints who figure in them have been largely neglected by historians. The hagiographical character of these texts, however, should not exclude them from historical consideration. They may preserve details of the saints’ careers which can be accepted as fact, and the accounts of miracles and wonders which they contain, although not to be treated as factual narratives, provide evidence bearing on the veneration of these saints. As for the date of composition, there is always a possibility that late medieval hagiographical texts represent stylistic and literary modifications of much more ancient versions, the former existence of which may in some cases be revealed by close analysis of the extant texts. The evidence relating to the whole group of murdered royal saints said to have been venerated in pre-Conquest England must therefore be evaluated before conclusions about the significance of this type of sanctity can be drawn. In what follows the saints in question will be considered in order of the apparent validity of the evidence pertaining to them, so that those whose existence and veneration are less certain can be examined in comparison with more firmly documented examples.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 11 , December 1982 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 I should like to thank Mr Martin Biddle for suggesting this subject to me and for much advice and criticism, and the Cambridge University Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Society for an invitation which prompted me to commit my results to paper. I am further grateful to Dr Wendy Davies, Professor R. H. C. Davis, Mr C. Hohler, Dr Henry Mayr-Harting, Dr P. Sims-Williams, Dr Pauline Stafford, Professor J. M. Wallace-Hadrill and Mr P. Wormald for criticizing earlier drafts of this paper. The following abbreviations have been adopted throughout: ASC= Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, Charles, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892–1899)Google ScholarBCS= Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. Birch, Walter de Gray, 3 vols. (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar; HE = Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum; MRH= Knowles, David and Hadcock, R. Neville, Medieval Religious House:, England and Wales, 2nd ed. (London, 1971)Google Scholar; RS = Series, Rolls; SO=Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Thomas, Arnold, RS, 2 vols. (London, 1882–1885)Google Scholar. Dating and authenticity of all charters referred to are based on the references in Peter Sawyer, H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968).Google Scholar

2 Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 372–3.Google Scholar On the date, see Stafford, Pauline, ‘The Reign of Æthelred II: a Study on the Limitations of Royal Policy and Action’, Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. Hill, David, BAR Brit. Ser. 59 (Oxford, 1978), 23Google Scholar and n. 33; and Keynes, Simon, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), p. 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n. 7, where arguments in favour of the date 978 are given.

3 For the Vita Oswaldi, see Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. Raine, James, RS, 3 vols. (London, 1879–1894) 1, 449–52Google Scholar, and English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy, Eng. Hist. Documents 1, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), 911–12.Google Scholar For the attribution of the Vita Oswaldi to Byrhtferth, see Lapidge, M., ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, ASE 4 (1975), 91–4Google Scholar; ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, MS 41 (1979), 331–53Google Scholar; and ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia Regum Attributed to Symeon of Durham’, ASE 10 (1981), 97–122Google Scholar. For the passio, see Fell, Christine E., Edward King and Martyr (Leeds, 1971), pp. xix–xx and 1–16.Google Scholar

4 The charter is Codex Diplomatics Aevi Saxonici, ed. Kemble, J. M., 6 vols. (London, 1839–1848)Google Scholar, no. 706. The law is ptd, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, Felix (Halle, 1898–1916) 1, 252Google Scholar. Wormald, Patrick, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, , pp. 53–4Google Scholar, argues that this law should be assigned to the reign of Cnut rather than to that of Æthelred, as previously supposed. On this, see also Sisam, Kenneth, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 280–1Google Scholar. Fora survey of the early development of Edward's cult, see Keynes, , Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 169–71.Google Scholar

5 HE III.14.

6 The Calendar of St Willibrord from MS Paris. Lat. 10837, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry Bradshaw Soc. 55 (London, 1918)Google Scholar. Wilson points out (p. xxii) that the appearance of Oswine's name may be merely an obit; but this seems unlikely in view of Bede's treatment of him.

7 The annals are printed in SO 11, 30–68. On their reliability and probable early date, see Blair, Peter Hunter, ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, Celt and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border, ed. Chadwick, Nora K. (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 86–99Google Scholar, and Lapidge, , ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia Regum’, pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

8 SO 11, 52.

9 Epistolae Karolini Aevi 11, ed. Dümmler, Ernst, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epist. 4 (Berlin, 1895), no. 108.Google Scholar

10 For the list, see The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, W. T. (London, 1949), pp. 59–64Google Scholar. The identification of Breedon-on-the-Hill's saint with the Northumbrian king is supported by this entry's position in the list, adjacent to other Northumbrian royal saints, Oswald, Oswine and Ælfwald. On the dedication of the church, see Arnold-Forster, Frances, Studies in Church Dedications, 3 vols. (London, 1899) III, s.n.Google Scholar

11 Rollason, D. W., ‘Lists of Saints’ Resting-Places in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 7 (1978), 70–2.Google Scholar

12 SO 11, 52.

13 SO 11, 45 and 63. There does exist a passio of Ealhmund in Gotha, Landesbibliothek I. 81, which is ptd Grosjean, Paul, ‘De Codice Hagiographico Gothano’, AB 58 (1940), 178–83Google Scholar (the manuscript is discussed Ibid. pp. 90–103 and by Fell, , Edward, pp. vi–viiGoogle Scholar). According to this, Ealhmund was actually a king of the Northumbrians who was killed at the Battle of Kempsford, in which he took the side of the men of Wiltshire against the Mercians (on the battle, see ASC s.a. 800). It seems likely that this episode in the passio is based on a misreading of the account of the Battle of Kempsford given s.a. 800 in the Worcester Chronicle (Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1848–1849) 1, 64)Google Scholar, with which in particular it has the words ‘vadum … quod lingua Anglorum Cymeresford nominatur’ in common. The Worcester Chronicle makes no mention of any participation by Wigstan in the battle; but its account is followed in the same entry by a sentence to the effect that Ealhmund, son of Alcred, king of the Northumbrians, was killed. Whereas the writer of the Worcester Chronicle does not seem to have connected this event with the battle, the writer of Ealhmund's passio may have thought incorrectly that this was what was intended. All that would then have remained for him to do was to add the account of Ealhmund's wish to mediate before the battle, and pious motives in taking the side of the Wiltshire men during it, which is found in the passio.

14 Liebermann, Felix, Die Heiligen Englands (Hanover, 1889), p. 11, sect. 11.Google Scholar

15 Rollason, ‘Resting-Places’, pp. 61–8, esp. 68.

16 Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1960), p. 142.Google Scholar

17 MRH, p. 438. The Vita Aelkmundi preserves a tradition that Ealhmund was first buried at Lilleshall in Shropshire, but this may be a confusion arising out of the fact that, c. 1145, the last dean of St Alkmund's, Shrewsbury, surrendered that church and its lands for the foundation of a house of Augustinian canons at Lilleshall, where no earlier church is known to have existed (MRH, p. 164). This association of Lilleshall with St Alkmund's, Shrewsbury, may have led to an ill-founded notion that Ealhmund himself had been buried at the former, prior to his sepulture at Derby.

18 D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: a Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England, ch. 2, forthcoming. See also Liebermann, , Heitigen, pp. iv–vGoogle Scholar, and Hardy, Thomas Duffus, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the End of the Reign of Henry VII RS, 3 vols. (London, 1862–1871)Google Scholar, nos. 685, 686, 879, 883 and 884.

19 The text is ptd SO 11, 3–13. Evidence for dating the original version is discussed by Hunter Blair, ‘Observations’, pp. 78–82. The extant text is probably by Byrhtferth of Ramsey; see Lapidge, ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia Regum’.

20 Rollason, Mildrith Legend, ch. 3, citing BCS 35, 40, 41, 42 and 44 inter alia.

21 Liebermann, , Heiligen, p. 11Google Scholar, sect. 16, and above, n. 15.

22 Taylor, H. M., ‘Repton Reconsidered: a Study in Structural Criticism’, England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, Peter and Hughes, Kathleen (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 351–89Google Scholar; Repton Studies 1: The Anglo-Saxon Crypt (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar and Repton Studies 2: The Anglo-Saxon Crypt and Church (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; and ‘Corridor-Crypts on the Continent and in England’, Trans, of the North Staffordshire Field Club 9 (1969), 17–52.Google Scholar

23 Personal communication from Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle.

24 Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham ad Annum 1418, ed. Macray, William Dunn, RS (London, 1863), pp. 325–7Google Scholar; on the manuscript, Ibid. pp. xxxiii–xxxiv. A much shorter version by the mid-fourteenth-century hagiographer John of Tynemouth must be an abbreviation of Thomas of Marlborough's version (on which, see below) on grounds of content, arrangement and wording. It is ptd Nova Legenda Anglie, ed. Horstmann, Carl, 2 vols. (London, 1901) 11, 465–7.Google Scholar

25 The text is on fol. 44. On the manuscript, see above, n. 13.

26 Facsimile of British Museum MS Harley 2253, ed. Ker, Neil Ripley, EETS o.s. 255 (London, 1965).Google Scholar On the date and localization, see pp. xxi–xxiii.

27 Shorter accounts, differing occasionally in minor details, are to be found in various later medieval historical works, on which see: Chronicon, ed. Thorpe, 1, 72 and 266–7;Google ScholarWillelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, Libri Quinque, ed. Stubbs, William, RS, 2 vols. (London, 1887–1889) 1, 263–4Google Scholar; Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, Libri Quinque, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A., RS (London, 1870), pp. 297–8Google Scholar; Matthaei Parisiensis Monachi Sancti Albani Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, RS, 6 vols. (London, 1872–1882) 1, 380Google Scholar; Polycbronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis, ed. Babington, Churchill and Lumby, Joseph Rawson, RS, 9 vols. (London, 1865–1886) vi, 324Google Scholar; and Rerum Anglicarum Scriptorespost Bedam Praecipui, ed. Savile, Henry (Frankfurt, 1596), 488V.Google Scholar

28 Chronicon de Evesham, ed. Macray, , p. 27Google Scholar, where Thomas of Marlborough refers to his authorship of the passio in a sentence almost identical to that found in the prologue to the passio itself (Ibid. p. 326). The suggestion that the earlier life revised by Marlborough was a lost work by Dominic, prior of Evesham in the late eleventh and first half of the twelfth century, has had to be rejected: see Jennings, J. C., ‘The Writings of Prior Dominic of Evesham’, EHR 77 (1962), 303–4.Google Scholar

29 Chronicon, ed. Thorpe, 1, 72 and 266–7.Google Scholar The dating remains uncertain: reference should be made to Chronicon, ed. Thorpe, 11, viii–xGoogle Scholar, which should be compared with Stevenson, W. H., ‘A Contemporary Description of the Domesday Survey’, EHR 22 (1907), 76–7Google Scholar, and The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. Darlington, R. R., Camden 3rd set. 40 (1928), x–xviGoogle Scholar, and idem, Anglo-Norman Historians (1947), pp. 14–15.

30 Chronicon de Evesham, ed. Macray, pp. 83 and 325–6.

31 See English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, Vol. 1: Texts, ed. Wormald, Francis, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 72 (London, 1934)Google Scholar, in which only the kalendar from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113 (no. 16) notes Wigstan's feast. It probably derives from Evesham after the saint's translation to that abbey, although the obits suggest a connection with Worcester Cathedral Priory (Ibid. pp. vi–vii). In the later kalendars (ptd English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, ed. Wormald, Francis, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 77 and 81 (London, 1939 and 1946))Google Scholar, Wigstan's feast is found only in an Evesham kalendar (p. 32).

32 ASC s.a. 874.

33 Personal communication from Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle.

34 ASC s.a. 851; BCS 430, 432, 435, 436, 452, 455 and 482 inter alia.

35 Chronicon, ed. Thorpe 1, 72.

36 The Worcester Chronicle gives the date as 1 June 850, on the vigil of Pentecost. This is impossible since Pentecost fell on 25 May in the year 850. It did, however, fall on 2 June in 849, which is probably the year to which the killing should be assigned. It is also the year given by Matthew Paris and Ranulph Higden. For references, see above, n. 27.

37 ASC s.a. 825 and 828.

38 Chronicon, ed. Thorpe 1, 69 and 266, and ASC 11, 77–8.

39 ASC s.a. 792.

40 Liebermann, , Heiligen, p. 11Google Scholar, sect. 13; and above, n. 15.

41 ASC s.a. 1055.

42 James, M. R. (‘Two Lives of St Ethelbert, King and Martyr’, EHR 32 (1917), 214–44)CrossRefGoogle Scholar discussed the hagiography of the saint and printed the passio by Gerald of Wales and that in CCCC 308. A passio by Osbert of Clare, which was thought to have been lost when James was writing, has come to light in Gotha, Landesbibliothek, I. 81; see Grosjean, ‘De Codice Gothano’, pp. 92–3. I am grateful to Dr R. J. Bartlett for this information.

43 James, ‘Two Lives’, pp. 218–20 and 236–44.

44 Levison, Wilhelm, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. 249–50.Google Scholar

45 Liebermann, , Heiligen, pp. 17 and 19Google Scholar (sect. 44), and above, n. 15.

46 I am grateful to Dr Sims-Williams for allowing me to use his transcript. For other manuscripts, see Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, no. 1069. There is an abbreviated version of the passio in Nova Legenda Anglie, ed. Horstmann 11, 110–13.1 have not been able to consult Antropoff, Rurik von, ‘Die Entwicklung der Kenelm-Legende’ (unpubl. doctoral thesis, Bonn, 1965).Google Scholar

47 Douce 368, 80r.

48 The passio in fact gives the date 819, which is incorrect and probably indicates that the writer was drawing on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the chronology of which is two years behind the true dates for the late eighth and early ninth centuries; see The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a Revised Translation, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy (London, 1961)Google Scholar, s.a. 754 and 845 and nn.

49 BCS 508 and 335. Kenelm also witnesses BCS 296 but this is probably a fabrication. Robinson, J. Armitage, Somerset Historical Essays (London, 1921), p. 38Google Scholar, n. 3, argues that a papal privilege granted to ‘Kenelmus rex’ in 798 may also be authentic. Robinson, however, distinguishes the Kenelm of these documents from the Kenelm of the legend, which seems an improbable assumption in view of the rarity of the name.

50 Levison, , England and the Continent, pp. 249–51Google Scholar, and Hartland, E. S., ‘The Legend of St Kenelm’, Trans. of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc. 39 (1916), 13–65.Google Scholar

51 The writer of the passio refers to certain cantilena et anglica scripta, which he claims to have used, together with works communicated to him by Queen Edith (Douce 368, 88v). Moreover the existence of a vernacular tradition may be indicated by a couplet preserved in English by Roger of Wendover and in Latin by the passio (Wright, C. E., The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh, 1939), p. 104)Google Scholar. It seems to be echoed by the phrase Kenelm cynebearn in the Secgan (Liebermann, , Heiligen, pp. 17 and 19 (sect. 44)).Google Scholar

52 Rollason, ‘Resting-Places’, p. 72.

53 The version in question, from the lost manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton Otto A. xvi, fol. 1, is ptd William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. Caley, John, Ellis, Henry and Bandinel, Bulkeley, 6 vols. (London, 1817–1830) vi, 226–30Google Scholar. For other versions, see Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, nos. 695–7 and Grosjean, ‘De Codice Gothano’, pp. 90–103 and 183–7.

54 MRH, p. 175; and A History of the County of Stafford III, ed. Greenslade, M. W. (Oxford, 1970), 240Google Scholar. The verses are ptd Dugdale, , Monasticon vi, 230–1.Google Scholar

55 Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, nos. 651–6.

56 Biddle, Martin, ‘Towns’, The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Wilson, David M. (London, 1976), pp. 120–1.Google Scholar

57 Robinson, J. Armitage, The Times of St Dunstan (Oxford, 1923), p. 13.Google Scholar

58 Rollason, ‘Resting-Places’, pp. 82–3.

59 For the legends, see above, pp. 2–11.

60 This motif was not peculiar to the legends of murdered royal saints. Such a column of light is said, for example, to have revealed the whereabouts of the bodies of the Hewalds (HE v.10) and a similar phenomenon persuaded the monks of Bardney to admit Oswald's relics (HE III.11).

61 For the possibility that this person may be an eighth-century regulus of the Magonsaetan and his appearance in the passio of St Æthelberht a gross anachronism, see Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of the West Midlands, 2nd ed. (Leicester, 1972), pp. 221–2.Google Scholar

62 Liebermann, , Heiligen, p. 3Google Scholar, sects. 10 and 12; and Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, Oswald, RS, 3 vols. (London, 1864–1866) III, 426Google Scholar. Latin texts of the legend use the Latin equivalent, precium (see above, n. 18).

63 HE in. 14.

64 The assertions in later medieval accounts that the foundation of abbeys by Ælfthryth and Æthelred represented a form of expiation for Edward's murder are probably unreliable; see Keynes, , Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 172Google Scholar and 190.

65 ASC s.a.; and below, p. 19.

66 Graus, František, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger (Prague, 1965), pp. 390–433Google Scholar, gives a general survey of early medieval royal saints.

67 Ibid. pp. 397–8 and 402–6. Folz, R., ‘Zur Frage der heiligen Könige: Heiligkeit und Nachleben in der Geschichte des burgundischen Königtums’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 14 (1958), 317–44Google Scholar, and ‘Tradition hagiographique et culte de saint Dagobert, roi des Francs’, Le Moyen Âge 69 (1963), 17–35.Google Scholar

68 Kologrivov, Ivan, Essai sur la sainteté en Russie (Bruges, 1953), pp. 27–34.Google Scholar

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70 Chronicon de Evesham, ed. Macray, pp. 83 and 325–6.

71 Levison, , England and the Continent, p. 252.Google Scholar

72 ASC s.a. 757, and Chronicon, ed. Thorpe 1, 266.

73 See above, p. 14.

74 On Minster in Thanet, see Rollason, Mildrith Legend, ch. 3; and Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church at Canterbury, forthcoming. On Stone, see above, p. 11 and nn. 53–4.

75 Rollason, Mildrith Legend; and HE iv.19 (17).

76 HE III.2, 3, 6 and 9–13; and Three Lives of English Saints, ed. Winterbottom, Michael (Toronto, 1972), pp. 65–87.Google Scholar

77 The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster Attributed To a Monk of St Berlin, ed. Barlow, Frank (London, 1962), and HE III. 18.Google Scholar

78 Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. Harmer, F. E. (Manchester, 1952), p. 191Google Scholar. See also above, n. 4.

79 Górski, ‘La Naissance’, passim.

80 This is argued with respect to all types of king-saint by Hoffman, Die heiligen Könige, passim; contrary views are put forward by Graus, , Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger, p. 175 and passim.Google Scholar

81 This interpretation is advanced by Chaney, William A., The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1970), pp. 77–80.Google Scholar

82 Much of the following discussion was prompted by Nelson, Janet, ‘Royal Saints and Early Medieval Kingship’, Sanctity and Secularity: the Church and the World, ed. Derek, Baker, Stud. in Church Hist. 10 (Oxford, 1973), 39–44.Google Scholar

83 Gaiffier, Baudouin de, ‘L'hagiographie et son public au Xle siècle’, Miscellanea Historica in Honorem Leonis van der Essen (Brussels, 1947) 1, 137–66Google Scholar, reprinted in Gaiffier, de, Études critiques d'hagiographie et d'iconologie, Subsidia hagiographica 43 (Brussels, 1967), 475–507.Google Scholar

84 Epistolae Karoli Aevi 11, ed. Dümmler, no. 3; also ptd (though not from the manuscript) Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869–1878)Google Scholar in, 447–62.

85 Ibid.

86 See above, p. 13.

87 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 373Google Scholar. Keynes, , Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 163–74Google Scholar, argues that Æthelred was not involved in the murder and that contemporaries did not suspect him of complicity in it. The vagueness of the early sources makes possible divergent interpretations of these matters and Keynes's position is undoubtedly tenable. But his arguments are not decisive and the weight of probability seems to be in favour of Stenton's view. It is hard to believe that many contemporaries did not suspect Æthelred or his mother of involvement in a crime from which they benefited so directly.

88 See above, n. 4.

89 Fisher, D. J. V., ‘The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’, Cambridge Hist. Jnl 10 (1950–1952), 255Google Scholar; and Stafford, ‘Reign of Æthelred’, p. 21.

90 The Passio Beatorum Martyrum Ethelredi atque Ethelbricti in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 285, fols. 116–21, states on 120V that Æthelwine (d. 992) gave permission for the translation and that it took place in the reign of Æthelred (978/9–1016). Although the manuscript is of thirteenth-century date, the text probably originated in the middle years of the eleventh century (see Rollason, Mildrith Legend, where it is printed and discussed). The Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, William Dunn, RS (London, 1886), p. 55Google Scholar, has a similar account but the compiler has placed it, presumably in error, in the section dealing with Edgar's reign. William of Malmesbury mentions Æthelwine's involvement in the translation in his De Gestis Pontificum (p. 319); but in his De Gestis Regum (1, 262) he attributes responsibility for the translation to Archbishop Oswald and places the event during Edgar's reign. Although the passio is clear about Æthelwine's involvement, it is equivocal as to whether Oswald was also concerned. Its statement, that the princes’ relics ‘exempti sunt a fratribus monasterii Ramesige et transuecti ad idem cenobium, quod isdem comes construxerat, cooperante sancte recordacionis domno Oswaldo archipresule’, could be taken as showing that Oswald was involved in the translation or it could be merely an allusion to Oswald's role in the foundation of Ramsey.

91 ASC 980 E and Raine, , Historians 1, 450–1.Google Scholar

92 Fisher, ‘Anti-Monastic Reaction’, pp. 268–9. Keynes, , Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 169–74Google Scholar, disputes this interpretation, arguing that the translation of Edward's remains was not regarded by contemporaries as an attempt at expiation for his murder and that Ælfhere was not implicated in that crime; he does not seem to attach any importance to the juxtaposition in the Vita Oswaldi of an account of Ælfhere's part in Edward's translation and the analysis of the attitude and fate of those guilty of Edward's death (see above, n. 91).

93 Raine, , Historians 1, 451.Google Scholar

94 See above, pp. 13–14.

95 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, p. 252Google Scholar and n. 2.

96 Ibid. p. 254.

97 See above, pp. 5–9.

98 See above, p. 4.

99 SO 11, 65.

100 ASE 806 E and Haddan and Stubbs, Councils in, 562–4.

101 Wright, , The Cultivation of Saga, pp. 95–104.Google Scholar

102 See above, pp. 9–10.

103 De Gestis Regum, ed. Stubbs 1, 16.

104 See above, p. 19. On Æthelred's attitude, see Patrick Wormald's review of Leyser, K. J., Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (London, 1979)Google Scholar, EUR 96 (1981), 600.

105 See above, pp. 13–14.

106 Rollason, Mildrith Legend, chs. 2 and 3.

107 Scott, F. S., ‘Earl Waltheof of Northumbria’, AAe 30 (1952), 149–213Google Scholar, and Russell, J. C., ‘The Canonisation of Opposition to the King in Angevin England’, Anniversary Essays in Medieval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins, ed. Taylor, Charles H. (Boston, 1929), pp. 279–90.Google Scholar

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