Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:35:12.702Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Penitential Discourse in the Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2013

LEVI ROACH
LEVI ROACH*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article consists of a detailed study of a series of extraordinary diplomas issued by King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ during the 990s. These diplomas restore lands and rights to churches which had earlier been despoiled by the king and his advisors and their wording indicates that they were intended as a conscious gesture of penitence. As such, the documents were of central political importance and it is argued that they can be fruitfully mined for evidence of Æthelred's own thoughts and feelings in these years; these diplomas might well be considered to preserve Æthelred's own ‘voice’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 258 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 T. Reuter, ‘The Ottonians and the Carolingian tradition’, in his Medieval polities and modern mentalities, ed. J. L. Nelson, Cambridge 2006, 268–83, quotation at p. 269. This article is an expanded English version of his ‘Ottonische Neuanfänge und karolingische Tradition’, in M. Puhle (ed.), Otto der Grosse, Magdeburg und Europa, I: Essays, Mainz 2001, 179–88, which lacks these more theoretical considerations.

2 Keynes, S., ‘The declining reputation of Æthelred the Unready’ (1978), rev. and repr. in Pelteret, D. (ed.), Anglo-Saxon history: basic readings, New York 2000, 157–90Google Scholar, and ‘A tale of two kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. xxxvi (1986), 195–217 at pp. 201–3.

3 Idem, The diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’, 978–1016: a study in their use as historical evidence, Cambridge 1980, p. xviii.

4 Ibid. 176–208; Williams, A., Æthelred the Unready: the ill-counselled king, London 2003, 23–9Google Scholar; Lavelle, R., Aethelred II: king of the English, 978–1016, Stroud 2002, 44–6Google Scholar; Offergeld, T., Reges pueri: das Königtum Minderjähriger im frühen Mittelalter (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Schriften l, 2001), 172–5Google Scholar.

5 Keynes, S., ‘Re-reading King Æthelred the Unready’, in Bates, D., Crick, J. and Hamilton, S. (eds), Writing medieval biography, 750–1250: essays in honour of Professor Frank Barlow, Woodbridge 2006, 77–97 at pp. 91–2Google Scholar.

6 Sawyer, 876 (Abingdon charters, 124).

7 A general discussion of narrationes is provided by H. Wolfram, ‘Political theory and narrative in charters’, Viator xxvi (1995), 39–51. The inclusion of such historical details is a feature of the diplomas of this period: Stenton, F. M., The Latin charters of the Anglo-Saxon period, Oxford 1955, 74–82Google Scholar; Keynes, Diplomas, 95–8, 200–2, and ‘Crime and punishment in the reign of Æthelred the Unready’, in I. N. Wood and N. Lund (eds), People and places in northern Europe, 500–1600: essays in honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, Woodbridge 1991, 67–81.

8 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS C, ed. K. O'Brien O'Keeffe (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition v, 2001), s.a. 993.

9 Cubitt, Catherinesuggests that this diploma may bear witness to an act of penance: ‘Bishops and councils in late Saxon England: the intersection of secular and ecclesiastical law’, in Hartmann, W. (ed.), Recht und Gericht in Kirche und Welt um 900, Munich 2007, 151–67 at pp. 162–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Whilst possible, this is neither stated explicitly in the diploma's narratio nor in any other contemporary source.

10 Sawyer, 885 (Rochester charters, 31).

11 Sawyer, 891 (KCD 698).

12 Sawyer, 893 (Rochester charters, 32).

13 ‘Nunc autem quia superna michi parcente clementia ad intelligibilem etatem perueni. et que pueriliter gessi in melius emendare decreui; iccirco domini compunctus gratia quicquid tunc instigante maligno contra sanctum dei apostolum me inique egisse recogito. totum nunc coram deo cum flebili cordis contritione peniteo. et queque opportuna ad eundem locum pertinentia libenter restauro. sperans penitentie mee lacrimas suscipi. et prioris ignorantie uincula solui ab eo qui non uult mortem peccatoris. sed ut magis conuertatur et uiuat’: Sawyer, 893 (Rochester charters, 32).

14 H. Foxhall Forbes, ‘The development of the notions of penance, purgatory and the afterlife in Anglo-Saxon England’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cambridge 2008, 103–7; Poschman, B., Busse und Letzte Ölung, Freiburg 1951, 87–8Google Scholar. See also Becher, M., ‘“Cum lacrimis et gemitu”: vom Weinen der Sieger und Besiegten im frühen und hohen Mittelalter’, in Althoff, G. (ed.), Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter (Vorträge und Forschungen li, 2001), 25–52 at pp. 33–5Google Scholar.

15 The benedictional of Archbishop Robert, ed. H. A. Wilson (HBS xxiv, 1903), 60; The Canterbury benedictional, ed. R. M. Woolley (HBS li, 1917), 31, 34; Pontificale Lanaletense: a pontifical formerly in use at St Germans, Cornwall, ed. G. H. Doble (HBS lxxiv, 1937), 79–80; Two Anglo-Saxon pontificals, ed. H. M. J. Banting (HBS civ, 1989), 132 (from the Egbert Pontifical). See also A pre-Conquest English prayer-book, ed. B. J. Muir (HBS ciii, 1988), 133.

16 Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. R. Weber, 5th edn, rev. R. Gryson, Stuttgart 2007; Benedicti regula, prol. 38, ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL lxxv, 1960.

17 Sawyer, 937 (Abingdon charters, 129).

18 The implications of this diploma for our knowledge of the fisc are explored by Lavelle, R. in Royal estates in Anglo-Saxon Wessex: land, politics and family strategies, Oxford 2007, 1, 90Google Scholar.

19 It is interesting that Æthelred comments that he does not know whether those who consented to the grant in Edward's reign did so ‘justly or unjustly’ (‘iuste aut iniuste’): Sawyer, 937 (Abingdon charters, 129).

20 Cubitt, C., ‘The politics of remorse: penance and royal piety in the reign of Æthelred the Unready’, Historical Research lxxxv (2012), 179–92Google Scholar; Roach, L., ‘Public rites and public wrongs: ritual aspects of diplomas in tenth- and eleventh-century England’, EME xix (2011), 182–203Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Cubitt for making her paper available to me in advance of publication. See also her remarks in ‘Ælfric's lay patrons’, in M. Swan and H. Magennis (eds), A companion to Ælfric, Leiden 2009, 165–92 at pp. 171–5.

21 Sawyer, 885 (Rochester charters, 31), 891 (KCD 698), 893 (Rochester charters, 32), 937 (Abingdon charters, 129).

22 Sawyer, 885 (Rochester charters, 31), 891 (KCD 698), 893 (Rochester charters, 32).

23 Sawyer, 885 (Rochester charters, 31), 893 (Rochester charters, 32). On the ‘chains of sin’ see Foxhall Forbes, H., ‘The power of binding and loosing: the chains of sin in Anglo-Saxon literature and liturgy’, Quaestio insularis viii (2007), 51–65Google Scholar.

24 Sawyer, 876 (Abingdon charters, 128), 891 (KCD 698).

25 Sawyer, 876 (Abingdon charters, 128), 937 (Abingdon charters, 129). On the importance of maledictions for this series see Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils’, 165–7, and ‘Archbishop Dunstan: a prophet in politics’, in J. Barrow and A. Wareham (eds), Myth, rulership, Church and charters: essays in honour of Nicholas Brooks, Aldershot 2008, 145–66 at pp. 163–4. More generally see Little, L. K., Benedictine maledictions: liturgical cursing in Romanesque France, Ithaca 1993Google Scholar, and Studtmann, J., ‘Die Pönformel der mittelalterlichen Urkunden’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung xii (1932), 251–374Google Scholar.

26 It is only in Abingdon diplomas that Æthelred's fear of the curses that he may have incurred finds expression, while it is only in Rochester documents that the nets or fetters of his ignorance are mentioned.

27 See the important observations in P. Stafford, ‘Political ideas in late tenth-century England: charters as evidence’ (2001), repr. in and cited from her Gender, family and the legitimation of power: England from the ninth to the early twelfth century, Aldershot 2006, no. vii.

28 Although doubts about the status of this ‘original’ have been raised, most scholars accept its authenticity: Keynes, Diplomas, 101 n. 54, and ‘Wulfsige, monk of Glastonbury, abbot of Westminster (c. 990–3), and bishop of Sherborne (c. 993–1002)’, in K. Barker, D. A. Hinton and A. Hunt (eds), St Wulfsige and Sherborne: essays to celebrate the millennium of the Benedictine abbey, 998–1998, Oxford 2005, 53–94 at p. 61; Abingdon charters, pp. lxxxv, 483; and S. D. Thomson, Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas: a palaeography, Woodbridge 2006, passim; cf. Dumville, D. N., Liturgy and the ecclesiastical history of late Anglo-Saxon England: four studies, Woodbridge 1992, 54Google Scholar n. 96, and English Caroline script and monastic history: studies in Benedictinism, A. D. 950–1030, Woodbridge 1993, 135 n. 100.

29 The presumption is that scribe and draftsman were generally one and the same in this period; see the examples provided by Drögereit, R., ‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung xiii (1935), 335–436Google Scholar. However, this need not always have been the case, as pointed out by Keynes, Diplomas, 71; Chaplais, P., ‘The royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” of the tenth century revisited’, in Mayr-Harting, H. and Moore, R. I. (eds), Studies in medieval history presented to R. H. C. Davis, London 1985, 41–51 at p. 42Google Scholar; and Insley, C., ‘Charters and scriptoria in the Anglo-Saxon south-west’, EME vii (1998), 173–97 at p. 184Google Scholar.

30 As first noted by Keynes, Diplomas, 101.

31 Regularis concordia, prol. 1, ed. T. Symons and S. Spath (Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum vii/3, 1984), 61–147.

32 Keynes, ‘Re-reading’, 91 n. 70. On Æthelwold's authorship of the Regularis concordia see M. Lapidge, ‘Æthelwold as scholar and teacher’ (1988), repr. in and cited from his Anglo-Latin literature, 900–1066, London 1993, 183–211 at pp. 192–4.

33 These further formulaic links were noted by Vollrath, H., Die Synoden Englands bis 1066, Paderborn 1986, 309–10Google Scholar, esp. p. 309 n. 70. She does not, however, draw any firm conclusions on their basis.

34 On these ‘Adam-proems’ (Adamsarengen) see Fichtenau, H., Arenga: Spätantike und Mittelalter im Spiegel von Urkundenformeln, Vienna 1957, 147–51Google Scholar, who unfortunately makes no use of Anglo-Saxon examples. On the ideological background see Anton, H. H., Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonn 1968, 362–70Google Scholar, and Stürner, W., Peccatum und potestas: der Sündenfall und die Entstehung der herrscherlichen Gewalt im mittelalterlichen Staatsdenken, Sigmaringen 1987Google Scholar.

35 Abingdon charters, pp. cxi–cxv. Note, however, that Kelly's case for diploma production at Abingdon rests heavily on a rehabilitation of the ‘Orthodoxorum’ charters in Eadwig's and Edgar's names. For an alternative interpretation see Keynes, Diplomas, 98–101.

36 Keynes, Diplomas, 186–208.

37 On these later developments see idem, ‘An abbot, an archbishop, and the viking raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, Anglo-Saxon England xxxvi (2007), 151–220, and ‘The vikings in England, c. 790–1016’, in P. Sawyer (ed.), The Oxford illustrated history of the vikings, Oxford 1997, 48–82 at pp. 79–81. See also Cubitt, ‘Politics of remorse’, tracing a similar line of continuity through Æthelred's penitential politics.

38 Hamilton, S., ‘A new model for royal penance? Helgaud of Fleury's Life of Robert the Pious’, EME vi (1997), 189–200Google Scholar, and ‘Otto iii's penance: a case study of unity and diversity in the eleventh-century Church’, in R. N. Swanson (ed.), Unity and diversity in the Church (Studies in Church History xxxii, 1996), 83–94.

39 See Mayr-Harting, H., Ottonian book illumination: an historical study, London 1991Google Scholar, i. 83–8, 135–9; Althoff, G., ‘Humiliatio – exaltatio: Theorie und Praxis eines herrscherlichen Handlungsmusters’, in Müller, J.-D. (ed.), Text und Kontext: Fallstudien und theoretische Begründungen einer kulturwissenschaftlich angeleiteten Mediävistik, Oldenbourg 2007, 39–51Google Scholar; and Koziol, G., Begging pardon and favor: ritual and political order in early medieval France, Ithaca 1992, 98–103Google Scholar, 166–73. Further discussion of these themes is provided by Insley, C., ‘Charters, ritual and late tenth-century English kingship’, in Nelson, J. L., Reynolds, S. and Johns, S. M. (eds), Gender and historiography: studies in the earlier Middle Ages in honour of Pauline Stafford, London 2012, 75–89Google Scholar. The author kindly made this paper available to me in advance of publication.

40 The chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell, London 1962. See also Ashley, S., ‘The lay intellectual in Anglo-Saxon England: Ealdorman Æthelweard and the politics of history’, in Wormald, P. and Nelson, J. L. (eds), Lay intellectuals in the Carolingian world, Cambridge 2007, 218–45Google Scholar, and Cubitt, ‘Ælfric's lay patrons’. Malcolm Godden has newly cast doubt on Æthelweard's authorship of the Chronicon: ‘Did King Alfred write anything?’, Medium Ævum lxxvi (2007), 1–23 at pp. 5–6. Godden's argument largely proceeds from the conviction that a layman could not have composed such a complex Latin work; however, comparison with the writings of the Carolingian layman Nithard would seem to warn against dismissing the possibility out of hand. See also Cubitt who takes a more positive view of Æthelweard's authorship: ‘Ælfric's lay patrons’, 182–3.

41 Ps-Cyprian, De duodecim abusivis saeculi, ed. S. Hellmann (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur xxxiv, 1909), 1–61. See further Meens, R., ‘Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: sins, kings and the well-being of the realm’, EME vii (1998), 345–57Google Scholar; Blattmann, M., ‘“Ein Unglück für sein Volk”: der Zusammenhang zwischen Fehlverhalten des Königs und Volkswohl in Quellen des 7.–12. Jahrhunderts’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien xxx (1996), 80–102Google Scholar; and K.-F. Werner, ‘Gott, Herrscher und Historiograph: der Geschichtsschreiber als Interpret des Wirkens Gottes in der Welt und Ratgeber der Könige (4. bis 12. Jahrhundert)’ (1987), repr. in and cited from his Einheit der Geschichte: Studien zur Historiographie, ed. W. Paravicini, Sigmaringen 1999, 89–119.

42 The De duodecim abusivis saeculi is listed amongst the books given by Æthelwold to Peterborough in Sawyer, 1446 (Peterborough charters, 29) and Ælfric translated and abridged it as De XII abusiuis secundum disputationem Sancti Cipriani Martyris, ed. R. Warner, Early English homilies from the twelfth-century MS. Vespasian D.XIV (Early English Text Society o.s. clii, 1917), 11–16. See also Lapidge, M., The Anglo-Saxon library, Oxford 2008, 135Google Scholar, 265, 338.

43 One certainly should not exclude a lay audience for Benedictine ideology here. In Æthelwold's ‘Account of King Edgar's establishment of monasteries’, ed. and trans. D. Whitelock in Councils and synods with other ecclesiastical documents relating to the English Church, A. D. 871–1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, Oxford 1981, i. 143–54, which was written to preface his translation of the Rule, Æthelwold states explicitly (pp. 151–2) that he sees the purpose of the translation as being to make the Rule available to ‘laymen’ (woroldmonnum). Helpful comparanda are offered by the reform efforts of Louis the Pious and their wide-ranging consequences: de Jong, M., The penitential state: authority and atonement in the age of Louis the Pious, 814–40, Cambridge 2009Google Scholar; Booker, C., Past convictions: the penance of Louis the Pious and the decline of the Carolingians, Philadelphia 2009Google Scholar.

44 Benedicti regula 49.1. See further Hamilton, S., The practice of penance, 900–1050, Woodbridge 2001, 77–103Google Scholar.

45 I am grateful to Dr Elizabeth Boyle for pointing out the potentially Augustinian nature of this discourse.

46 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. C. Erdmann (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Deutsches Mittelalter i, 1937), no. 5; Althoff, G., Heinrich IV., Darmstadt 2006, 120–3Google Scholar; Robinson, I. S., Henry IV of Germany, 1056–1106, Cambridge 1999, 114–22Google Scholar. It may be of importance here that both Æthelred and Henry were boy-kings. See further Offergeld, Reges pueri, and Kölzer, T., ‘Das Königtum Minderjähriger im fränkisch-deutschen Mittelalter: eine Skizze’, Historische Zeitschrift ccli (1990), 291–332Google Scholar.

47 Ps-Cyprian, De duodecim abusivis saeculi, abusio ix. For general discussion see Patzold, S., ‘Konsens und Konkurrenz: Überlegungen zu einem aktuellen Forschungskonzept der Mediävistik’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien xli (2007), 75–103Google Scholar; Bührer-Thierry, G., ‘Le Conseiller du roi: les écrivains carolingiens et la traduction biblique’, Médiévales xii (1987), 11–23Google Scholar; and J. L. Nelson, ‘Bad kingship in the earlier Middle Ages’ (1999), repr. in and cited from her Courts, elites, and gendered power in the early Middle Ages: Charlemagne and others, Aldershot 2007, no. viii, 19–20. This discourse of counsel runs through Æthelred's charters more generally, as pointed out by Stafford, ‘Political ideas’, 73–6.

48 Sawyer, 885 (Rochester charters, 31).

49 According to the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici Project (ed.), Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web register, http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/, accessed 25 July 2010, this quotation only appears twice elsewhere in the corpus of Old English and Anglo-Latin literature: once in Æthelwold's translation of the Rule of St Benedict and once in Ælfric's Lives of saints.

50 Benedicti regula, prol. 37–8. The form of this quotation may suggest that it was drawn from the Rule, rather than the Vulgate, as the former includes the reading patientia Dei for the Vulgate's benignitas Dei. However, this is a common variant, which might equally have been taken from the works of Augustine, Gregory the Great or others; cf., for example, Augustine, Sermones, nos 351.12, 352.8, PL xxxix.1548, 1559–60; Gregory, Moralia in Iob 17.6, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL cxliii A, 1979.

51 The public and symbolic nature of these documents is further investigated in Roach, ‘Public rites and public wrongs’.

52 Important here are the general observations of H. Fichtenau, ‘Monarchische Propaganda in Urkunden’ (1956/7), repr. in and cited from his Beiträge zur Mediävistik: Augewählte Aufsätze, II: Urkundenforschung, Stuttgart 1977, 18–36. That all of Æthelred's charters can be fruitfully mined for contemporary ‘political ideas’ is shown by Stafford, ‘Political ideas’.

53 See respectively Wolfram, H., Intitulatio I: Lateinische Königs- und Fürstentitel bis zum Ende des 8. Jahrhunderts, Vienna 1967Google Scholar, and Fichtenau, Arenga.

54 P. Hofmann, ‘Infernal imagery in Anglo-Saxon charters’, unpubl. PhD diss. St Andrews 2008, esp. pp. 211–16.

55 Sawyer, 911 (KCD, 714); Keynes, S., ‘King Æthelred's charter for Eynsham Abbey (1005)’, in Baxter, S. and others (eds), Early medieval studies in memory of Patrick Wormald, Farnham 2009, 451–73Google Scholar.

56 J. L. Nelson, ‘The voice of Charlemagne’ (2001), repr. in and cited from her Courts, elites, and gendered power, no. xiii; Scharer, A., ‘Die Stimme des Herrschers: zum Problem der Selbstaussage in Urkunden’, in Hruza, K. and Harold, P. (eds), Wege zur Urkunde – Wege der Urkunde – Wege der Forschung: Beiträge zur europäischen Diplomatik des Mittelalters, Vienna 2005, 13–21Google Scholar.

57 Hoffmann, H., ‘Eigendiktat in den Urkunden Ottos iii. und Heinrichs ii.’, Deutsches Archiv xliv (1988), 390–423Google Scholar. The further addition of D O III 285 to the list of diplomas that Otto iii dictated is suggested by Warner, D. A., ‘Ideas and action in the reign of Otto iii’, Journal of Medieval History xxv (1999), 1–18 at p. 16Google Scholar.

58 D H II 34; Hoffmann, ‘Eigendiktat’, 415–16, quotation at p. 415. See also Weinfurter, S., ‘Der Anspruch Heinrichs ii. auf die Königsherrschaft 1002’, in Dahlhaus, J. and Kohnle, A. (eds), Papstgeschichte und Landesgeschichte: Festschrift für Hermann Jakobs zum 65. Geburtstag, Cologne 1995, 121–34 at pp. 121–3Google Scholar; and Körntgen, L., ‘“In primis Herimanni ducis assensu”: zur Funktion von D H II. 34 im Konflikt zwischen Heinrich ii. und Hermann von Schwaben’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien xxxiv (2000), 159–84Google Scholar.

59 D O III 331; Hoffmann, ‘Eigendiktat’, 398–9.

60 Hoffmann, ‘Eigendiktat’, 406.

61 Ibid. 402, 410–15, 422–3.

62 Ibid. 410–13, 415–18 .

63 Ibid. 419, admitting that ‘in each case it may remain an open question whether or not one can ascribe this or that passage to the king’ (‘im einzelnen bliebe es vielleicht offen, ob man dieses und jenes Diktat dem König zuschreiben darf oder nicht’).

64 ‘Is Robert i in hell? The diploma for Saint-Denis and the mind of the rebel king (Jan. 25, 923)’, EME xiv (2006), 233–67.

65 Ibid. 263.