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WHY WERE SOME TENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH KINGS PRESENTED AS RULERS OF BRITAIN?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2011

George Molyneaux
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Abstract

Some tenth-century English kings, especially Æthelstan and Edgar, were commonly presented as rulers of Britain. The basic reason for this is that they had a loose but real hegemony over the other rulers on the island. This hegemony did not collapse in subsequent centuries, but English kings were less often described as rulers of Britain. The intensification of royal rule within the English kingdom in the second half of the tenth century made kings’ power inside the kingdom increasingly unlike their power elsewhere in Britain: it consequently became harder to think of Britain as a single political unit.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 21 , December 2011 , pp. 59 - 91
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2011

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References

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19 For references, see Kleinschmidt, ‘Titulaturen’, 93–8, 106, 110–11, 112. Cf. Regularis Concordia, i, ed. and trans. T. Symons (Edinburgh, 1953), 1.

20 For references, see Kleinschmidt, ‘Titulaturen’, 99–103.

21 S 403, 412, 413, 416, 418, 418a, 1604. In all but two of these witness lists, the name directly after Ealdred is Uhtred dux. This strengthens the identification with Ealdred of Bamburgh, who had a brother called Uhtred: Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, xxii, ed. and trans. T. Johnson South (Cambridge, 2002), 60. See also S 379, 417.

22 The likely year of Ealdred's death can be inferred from the Annals of Clonmacnoise, which survive only in a seventeenth-century English translation. The death of ‘Adulf mcEtulfe king of North Saxons’ is recorded under 928, along with Æthelstan's Scottish campaign, which sources with more reliable absolute chronology place in 934: D. Murphy, ed., The Annals of Clonmacnoise (Dublin, 1896), 149. Ealdred's successors attested S 407, 425, 434, 520, 544, 546, 550, 552a (Osulf, in the first three with Uhtred), 766, 771, 779, 806 (Eadulf), 881 (Waltheof), 921, 922, 926, 931, 931b, 933, 934 (another Uhtred). Cf. D. Whitelock, ‘The Dealings of the Kings of England with Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickens, ed. P. Clemoes (1959), 70–88 at 76–84.

23 S 400, 407, 413, 416, 417, 418a, 420, 425, 426, 427, 434, 1792. For Strathclyde/Cumbria, see P. A. Wilson, ‘On the Use of the Terms “Strathclyde” and “Cumbria”’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, new series, 66 (1966), 57–92; Woolf, A., From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070 (Edinburgh, 2007), 152–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Malcolm's attestation is in S 779. The Welsh attestations are in S 520, 544, 550, 552a, 566, 633, 1497.

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26 Cf. Williams, A., ‘An Outing on the Dee: King Edgar at Chester, a.d. 973’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, 14 (2004), 229–43 at 236 n. 35Google Scholar; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 174; Keynes, ‘Edgar’, 26–7, 50–1.

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28 ASC DE 973.

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33 K. Jonsson, The New Era: The Reformation of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage (1987), 128–30; D. M. Metcalf, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, 973–1086 (1998), 208.

34 H. A. Wilson, ed., The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert (1903), 145; Turner, D. H., ed., The Claudius Pontificals (Chichester, 1971), 93Google Scholar; Nelson, J. L., ‘Inauguration Rituals’, in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Sawyer, P. H. and Wood, I. N. (Leeds, 1979), 50–71 at 63–70Google Scholar; Nelson, ‘Second English Ordo’, 369–74.

35 Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ii.31, ed. R. Holtzmann (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, new series, ix, Berlin, 1955), 77–8. On Edgar's embassy, see K. J. Leyser, ‘The Ottonians and Wessex’, in idem, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries, ed. T. Reuter (1994), 73–104 at 95–8; Keynes, ‘Edgar’, 49.

36 Three Welsh kings who witnessed a charter at Winchester on 28 May 934 (S 425) attested at Nottingham ten days later (S 407): they appear to have been accompanying Æthelstan as he headed for Scotland.

37 ASC ABCDEF 934; John of Worcester, Chronicle, 934 (ii, 388–90). In the section of John's Chronicle concerning the period before about 970, verifiable sources are usually rendered with reasonable accuracy: R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, ‘The “Chronicon ex Chronicis” of “Florence” of Worcester and its Use of Sources for English History before 1066’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 5 (1982), 185–96.

38 Williams, I. and Bromwich, R., ed. and trans., Armes Prydein: The Prophecy of Britain from the Book of Taliesin (Dublin, 1982), especially lines 17–22, 69–86Google Scholar. For discussion, see Dumville, D. N., ‘Brittany and “Armes Prydein Vawr”’, Études Celtiques, 20 (1983), 145–58Google Scholar; Breeze, ‘Armes Prydein’, 209–18; Etchingham, C., ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: The Insular Viking Zone’, Peritia, 15 (2001), 145–87 at 183–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dumville favours a date between c. 935 and c. 950, but perhaps as late as c. 980. Breeze contends that the poem was written in 940. Etchingham extends the date range into the eleventh century.

39 Asser, Life of King Alfred, lxxx (66–7); William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ii.134 (i, 214). Cf. Lynch, J. H., Christianizing Kingship: Ritual Sponsorship in Anglo-Saxon England (Ithaca, NY, 1998), 189–228Google Scholar. For an intriguing suggestion about the baptismal name of Constantine's son, see Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 192–3.

40 ASC 878, 893, ABCD 943.

41 ASC D 927, ABCD 945, DE 973.

42 T. Miller, ed. and trans., The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, iv.20, v.18 (4 vols. in 2, 1890–8), i, 314, 464; Magennis, H., ed. and trans., The Old English Life of Saint Mary of Egypt (Exeter, 2002), lines 119, 402Google Scholar. Cf. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv.18, v.20 (388, 530); Paul the Deacon, Life of St Mary of Egypt, ed. and trans. Magennis, Old English Life of Saint Mary, lines 134, 416. I identified this corpus through searches of Cameron, A., Amos, A. C. and Healey, A. diP., eds., Dictionary of Old English (Toronto, 1986–)Google Scholar, consulted at http://oxlip.ouls.ox.ac.uk/doe/, accessed 8 June 2011; Healey, A.diP., ed., The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form (Toronto, 2009)Google Scholar, consulted at http://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/site/human/english/materials/chronology/oldenglish/, accessed 8 June 2011. It is also notable that efenwyrhtan is translated cooperatores by John of Worcester, Chronicle, 973 (ii, 422).

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45 Armes Prydein, especially lines 9–11, 131, 147–54.

46 ASC ABCDEF 945; Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum, i, 398. Edmund may well also have been involved in the death of the king of Gwynedd, who was killed ‘by the Saxons’ in 942: Dumville, D. N., ed. and trans., Annales Cambriae, a.d. 682–954: Texts A–C in Parallel (Cambridge, 2002), 16Google Scholar.

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48 ASC DE 973.

49 Hudson, B. T., Kings of Celtic Scotland (Westport, CT, 1994), especially 73–6, 97–101Google Scholar, is particularly tendentious.

50 The clearest instance is D. P. Kirby, ‘Hywel Dda: Anglophil?’, Welsh History Review, 8 (1976–7), 1–13.

51 Broun, Scottish Independence, 1–24, 161–212.

52 S 400, 407, 413, 416, 417, 418a, 420, 425, 434, 520, 544, 550, 552a, 566, 633, 1497, 1792.

53 The relevant section is Asser, Life of King Alfred, lxxx–lxxxi (66–7). On audience, see Kirby, D. P., ‘Asser and his Life of King Alfred’, Studia Celtica, 6 (1971), 12–35 at 17Google Scholar; Campbell, J., ‘Asser's Life of Alfred’, in The Inheritance of Historiography, 350–900, ed. Holdsworth, C. and Wiseman, T. P. (Exeter, 1986), 115–35 at 122–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kempshall, M., ‘No Bishop, No King: The Ministerial Ideology of Kingship and Asser's Res Gestae Aelfredi’, in Belief and Culture in the Early Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. Gameson, R. and Leyser, H. (Oxford, 2001), 106–27Google Scholar.

54 That the parties to an amicitia agreement did not need to be equals is illustrated by Henry the Fowler's contracting amicitiae with men whose lord he was: Althoff, G., Amicitiae und Pacta. Bündnis, Einung, Politik und Gebetsgedenken im beginnenden 10. Jahrhundert (Hanover, 1992), 27–35Google Scholar. See also Althoff, G., Family, Friends and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Early Medieval Europe, trans. Carroll, C. (Cambridge, 2004), 67–90Google Scholar.

55 Dumville, ed. and trans., Annales Cambriae, a.d. 682–954, 14, with discussion by T. M. Charles-Edwards, ‘Wales and Mercia 613–918’, in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe, ed. M. P. Brown and C. A. Farr (2001), 89–105 at 102–5.

56 ASC ABCD 945; Hudson, B. T., ‘Elech and the Scots in Strathclyde’, Scottish Gaelic Studies, 15 (1988), 145–9Google Scholar; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 156–7, 182–5, 270–1.

57 De Primo Saxonum Adventu, ed. T. Arnold, Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia (Rolls Series, 75, 2 vols., 1882–5), ii, 365–84 at 382. For discussion, see M. O. Anderson, ‘Lothian and the Early Scottish Kings’, Scottish Historical Review, 39 (1960), 98–112; G. W. S. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots: Government, Church and Society from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century (1973), 148–61; B. Meehan, ‘The Siege of Durham, the Battle of Carham and the Cession of Lothian’, Scottish Historical Review, 55 (1976), 1–19, especially 12–17; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 211, 234–6.

58 The text is edited by B. T. Hudson, ‘The Scottish Chronicle’, Scottish Historical Review, 77 (1998), 129–61 at 148–51. Cf. Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 177–81, 209–11.

59 Historia Regum, ed. Arnold, Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ii, 3–283 at 93. For a map, see Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 162.

60 Cf. R. R. Davies, Domination and Conquest: The Experience of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, 1100–1300 (Cambridge, 1990), especially 1–24.

61 Contrast Thornton, ‘Edgar and the Eight Kings’, 77–9; Barrow, ‘Chester's Earliest Regatta?’; Jayakumar, ‘Some Reflections’, 31–5.

62 Davies, Domination and Conquest, 47–108; Davies, R. R., ‘“Keeping the Natives in Order”: The English King and the “Celtic” Rulers 1066–1216’, Peritia, 10 (1996), 212–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 For references, see Maund, K. L., Ireland, Wales, and England in the Eleventh Century (Woodbridge, 1991), 120–41Google Scholar; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 232–40, 254–5, 270.

64 ASC CDE 1000. Cf. Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 222–3.

65 Davies, W., Patterns of Power in Early Wales (Oxford, 1990), 41–7, 80–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 342–50.

66 Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 214–19.

67 ASC DEF 1027. On the date and context, see Hudson, B. T., ‘Cnut and the Scottish Kings’, English Historical Review, 107 (1992), 350–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 244–8; Bolton, T., The Empire of Cnut the Great: Conquest and the Consolidation of Power in Northern Europe in the Early Eleventh Century (Leiden, 2009), 136–50Google Scholar.

68 ASC CD 1054; Woolf, Pictland to Alba, 260–70.

69 ASC C 1056, D 1058, DE 1063. Cf. Hudson, B. T., ‘The Destruction of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn’, Welsh History Review, 15 (1990–1), 331–50Google Scholar; Maund, Ireland, Wales, and England, 125, 138–9.

70 English military interventions in Wales are also known to have occurred in 967, 978, 983, 985, 992, 1012, 1035, 1046, 1055 and 1056. Some or all of these campaigns may well have had royal approval or support. For references to 992 and later, see Maund, Ireland, Wales, and England, 121–5. For earlier references, see J. Williams ab Ithel, ed., Annales Cambriae (Rolls Series, 20, 1860), 19, 20 and the annals for 967, 978, 983 and 985 in Jones, T., trans., Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth MS. 20 Version (Cardiff, 1952)Google Scholar; Jones, T., ed. and trans., Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version (Cardiff, 1955)Google Scholar; Jones, T., ed. and trans., Brenhinedd y Saesson or The Kings of the Saxons (Cardiff, 1971)Google Scholar.

71 Davies, First English Empire, 195.

72 Ibid., especially 48–53, 79–88, 113–71, 191–203.

73 Ibid., especially 89–112, 195–6, 198–9.

74 See especially Davies, R. R., ‘The English State and the “Celtic” Peoples 1100–1400’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 6 (1993), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Davies, First English Empire, 199–200. Cf. Wormald, P., ‘Engla Lond: The Making of an Allegiance’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 7 (1994), 1–24 at 10–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foot, S., ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 6 (1996), 25–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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77 Adam of Dryburgh, De tripartito tabernaculo, ii.13, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina (221 vols., Paris, 1844–64), cxcviii, col. 723. Cf. Broun, D., ‘Becoming Scottish in the Thirteenth Century: The Evidence of the Chronicle of Melrose’, in West over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300: A Festschrift in Honour of Dr Barbara E. Crawford, ed. Smith, B. Ballin, Taylor, S. and Williams, G. (Leiden, 2007), 19–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 For references, see Kleinschmidt, ‘Titulaturen’, 89–116.

79 S 632, 725; Life of King Edward, 64–6, 86; J. Gillingham, ‘The Foundations of a Disunited Kingdom’, in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, ed. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (1995), 48–64. This is but one of Gillingham's several articles bearing on this issue.

80 For rather equivocal comments on the contentions of those whom one might call the ‘Anglo-Saxon statesmen’, see Davies, ‘English State and the “Celtic” Peoples’, 4; Davies, R. R., ‘The Medieval State: The Tyranny of a Concept?’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 16 (2003), 280–300 especially 286, 288–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Campbell, J., ‘The Late Anglo-Saxon State: A Maximum View’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 87 (1994), 39–65Google Scholar, is one of many statements to this effect.

82 ASC D 1051 states that Edward the Confessor abolished the heregyld in the thirty-ninth year after it had been instituted. He had previously dismissed at least some of his mercenary sailors (ASC C 1049, CE 1050). The reference to the thirty-ninth year corresponds to the record of forty-five Danish ships having entered Æthelred's service in 1012 (ASC CDE 1012). The tax may not, however, have been suspended for long: Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor, revised edn (New Haven, CT, 1997), 106 and n. 5Google Scholar. On the scale of taxation, see Lawson, M. K., ‘The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns of Æthelred II and Cnut’, English Historical Review, 99 (1984), 721–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with Lawson and Gillingham's subsequent debate in volumes 104 (1989) and 105 (1990). The role of shires and hundreds in tax assessment and collection is demonstrated by the Northamptonshire Geld Roll: A. J. Robertson, ed., Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1956), 230–6.

83 Wormald, P., ‘Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Davies, W. and Fouracre, P. (Cambridge, 1986), 149–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wormald, P., ‘Giving God and King their Due: Conflict and its Regulation in the Early English State’, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 44 (1997), 549–90Google Scholar. Wormald's views on the marginalisation of feud should be treated with caution: Hyams, P. R., Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 2003), 71–110Google Scholar.

84 R. H. M. Dolley and D. M. Metcalf, ‘The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F.M. Stenton on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday, ed. R. H. M. Dolley (1961), 136–68; Stewart, I., ‘Coinage and Recoinage after Edgar's Reform’, in Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildebrand, ed. Jonsson, K. (Stockholm, 1990), 456–85Google Scholar; Metcalf, Atlas.

85 E.g. Campbell, J., ‘Observations on English Government from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 25 (1975), 39–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; H. R. Loyn, The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England, 500–1087 (1984), 81–171; P. Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (1989), 134–49. Williams, A., Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500–1066 (Basingstoke, 1999), 73–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is somewhat more nuanced in chronology. Campbell particularly acknowledged change over time in his ‘Late Anglo-Saxon State’, 53.

86 For a map of Edward the Confessor's lands, as recorded by Domesday, see Hill, D. H., An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), 101Google Scholar. Kings acquired much land that had once been in ecclesiastical possession, but the extent to which they directly expropriated churches is unclear: Fleming, R., ‘Monastic Lands and England's Defence in the First Viking Age’, English Historical Review, 100 (1985), 247–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dumville, D. N., Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), 29–54Google Scholar.

87 ASC ABCD 914, A 915, 917, 918. Edward the Elder's legislation states that harbourers of fugitives in the north and east must make amends in accordance with friðgewritu: ii Ew, 5.2 (unless otherwise stated, legal texts are cited from F. Liebermann, ed., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (3 vols., Halle, 1903–16), using the system of reference set out at i, p. xi). These ‘peace-writings’ may have been the terms upon which submissions had been made to Edward, pace Wormald, P., The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, i:Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), 438–9Google Scholar.

88 E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis (1962), 98–9. For interpretations that play up the extent of expropriation, see Dumville, Wessex and England, 152–3; C. R. Hart, The Danelaw (1992), 134–5, 226–7; Wormald ‘Engla Lond’, 8. The text states that ‘there was no land in the whole of Huntingdonshire that was so free that it could not be lost through forfeiture (tam libera que per forisfacturam non posset iri perditum)’ save for two hides at Bluntisham and two near Spaldwick. Hart renders this ‘there was no free land but that was forfeited’ except the hides at Bluntisham and near Spaldwick, a slight but possibly significant mistranslation.

89 Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 157; Hart, Danelaw, 569–604 especially 570–2; Wickham, C., Problems in Doing Comparative History (Southampton, 2005), 25Google Scholar. Cf. the now-untenable assumption that the rise of the Carolingians led to a mass imposition of Austrasian magnates in Neustria: Werner, K. F., ‘Important Noble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne – A Prosopographical Study of the Relationship between King and Nobility in the Early Middle Ages’, trans. Reuter, T., The Medieval Nobility: Studies on the Ruling Classes of France and Germany from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century (Amsterdam, 1979), 137–202 at 146–73Google Scholar.

90 Asser, Life of King Alfred, lxxvii (62). Cf. N. Banton, ‘Ealdormen and Earls in England from the Reign of King Alfred to the Reign of King Æthelred II’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1981), 89, 96–100, 141; Nelson, J. L., ‘“A King Across the Sea”: Alfred in Continental Perspective’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 36 (1986), 45–68 at 60–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Stenton's attribution to Edward the Elder of the shiring of the West Midlands has been particularly influential: Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 336–7. I develop the argument of this and the following four paragraphs much more fully at Molyneaux, ‘Formation’, 89–243.

92 Lantfred, Translatio et Miracula S. Swithvni, viii, ed. and trans. Lapidge, Cult of St Swithun, 252–333 at 290; ASC C 980; Liber Eliensis, 85, 98–9, 109, 116; W. D. Macray, ed., Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis (Rolls Series, 83, 1886), 50, 93. There are grounds to think that Norfolk and Suffolk were not established as shires until well into the eleventh century: Marten, L., ‘The Shiring of East Anglia: An Alternative Hypothesis’, Historical Research, 81 (2008), 1–27Google Scholar.

93 For southern shires before the end of the ninth century, see ASC 757, 802, 840, 845, 851, 853, 860, ABCD 897. The earliest clear accounts of shire meetings are S 1454, 1456, 1458; Liber Eliensis, 85, 98–9, 109; Chronicon Abbatiæ Rameseiensis, 50. In the south, where shires are known to have existed earlier, the men of the shire may sometimes have assembled to address judicial matters (III As is suggestive in this regard), but there is no sign that they did so regularly before the latter part of the tenth century.

94 S 1456, 1458. Cf. W. A. Morris, The Medieval English Sheriff to 1300 (Manchester, 1927), 1–39 especially 18–21.

95 III Em, 2; III Eg, 5, 7.1; IV Eg, 3.1–11; I Atr, 1.2–1.3; III Atr, 1.2, 3.1–3.3; II Cn, 15.2, 17–17.1, 19, 20–20a, 22–22.1, 25.1, 27, 30–30.2, 31a; A. G. Kennedy, ‘Cnut's Law Code of 1018’, Anglo-Saxon England, 11 (1983), 57–81 at 79 (cl. 26.3). Some of these references are to wapentakes, the equivalent of hundreds in areas of Scandinavian influence. The Hundred Ordinance is undated but cannot be earlier than Edmund's reign, since it refers to him: Hu, 2. For an attempt to trace hundreds back to the early tenth century, see H. R. Loyn, ‘The Hundred in England in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries’, in British Government and Administration: Studies Presented to S.B. Chrimes, ed. H. Hearder and H. R. Loyn (Cardiff, 1974), 1–15 at 3–6.

96 I Ew, 1–1.1; II As, 12, 13.1 but cf. IV As, 2; VI As, 10. That a port was the same kind of place as a burh can be inferred from II As, 14–14.2, which states that no one may mint coins except in a port, allocates quotas of moneyers to certain towns and assigns each unnamed burh one moneyer. For the association of reeve and burh, see I As, prol. ‘Burhs’ is so widely used that it would seem precious to insist on byrig as the plural.

97 IV Eg, 2–12.1, which stresses that the provisions should apply in all parts of the kingdom.

98 II As, 20–20.8.

99 III Eg, 7–7.2. The other half was to go to a person known as the landhlaford, again a change from Æthelstan's legislation.

100 The groups of one hundred men mentioned in VI As should not be confused with territorial hundreds.

101 III Eg, 5.1.

102 Blackburn, M. A. S., ‘Alfred's Coinage Reforms in Context’, in Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conferences, ed. Reuter, T. (Aldershot, 2003), 199–217Google Scholar.

103 On regional variation, see Stewart, I., ‘English Coinage from Athelstan to Edgar’, Numismatic Chronicle, 148 (1988), 192–214Google Scholar. The fundamental reference work is Blunt, Stewart and Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England, with analysis of metrology at 235–47. For debate on the extent of royal control of minting, see Jonsson, New Era, 31–78, 185–92; Metcalf, D. M., ‘Were Ealdormen Exercising Independent Control over the Coinage in Mid Tenth Century England?’, British Numismatic Journal, 57 (1987), 24–33Google Scholar; Jonsson, K., ‘The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar – The Legacy of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms’, in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. 500–1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald, ed. Cook, B. and Williams, G. (Leiden, 2006), 325–46Google Scholar. I do not endorse Jonsson's contention that ealdormen restricted the movement of coin within the kingdom, but the argument for minimal royal control of minting is strong.

104 S 362. Cf. Nelson, ‘“A King Across the Sea”’, 53–5.

105 The extent of kings’ lands cannot be determined before Domesday Book, but in 1066 Edward the Confessor was the greatest landholder in the kingdom: Baxter, S., The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007), 128–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 ASC D 952, DEF 969; Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum, i, 414–15. Roger assigns the punishment of Thanet to 974, but his chronology is unreliable: Dolley, M., ‘Roger of Wendover's Date for Eadgar's Coinage Reform’, British Numismatic Journal, 49 (1979), 1–11 at 3–7Google Scholar.

107 For ravaging after Edgar's reign, see ASC CDE 986, CD 1041, E 1051; John of Worcester, Chronicle, 1041 (ii, 532); Kapelle, W. E., The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and its Transformation, 1000–1135 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1979), 117–19Google Scholar.

108 Asser, Life of King Alfred, lxxx (66–7).

109 S 346.

110 Æthelweard, Chronicle, iv.3 (49, 50); Hearne, T., ed., Hemingi Chartularium Ecclesiæ Wigorniensis (2 vols., Oxford, 1723), 1, 242Google Scholar. The regnal list is preserved in an early eleventh-century manuscript: Ker, N. R., ‘Hemming's Cartulary: A Description of the Two Worcester Cartularies in Cotton Tiberius A. xiii’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. Hunt, R. W., Pantin, W. A. and Southern, R. W. (Oxford, 1948), 49–75 especially 55, 68–72Google Scholar.

111 Byrhtferth of Ramsey, Life of St Oswald, iii.14 (82–4).

112 ASC ABCD 903, ABCDEF 934, 945, D 948, DEF 969.

113 ASC D 927; Af, 1; II Ew, 5. Cf. ASC D 947.

114 ASC A 917, ABCD 945, DE 973; II Ew, 1.1.

115 ASC ABCD 914, A 917, 918.

116 ASC A 920.

117 Cf. Davies, R. R., Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Smith, B. (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 1, 6–7, 15–18, 158–78, 197–217.

118 Contrast M. R. Davidson, ‘The (Non)submission of the Northern Kings in 920’, in Edward the Elder, 899–924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (2001), 200–11.

119 Since no genuine charters are extant from the second half of Edward the Elder's reign, it is impossible to say whether he was accorded styles that presented him as ruler of Britain. The probability is that he was not, since Æthelstan's early charters do not include such styles. On the hiatus in the charters, see Dumville, Wessex and England, 151–3; P. Wormald, ‘On þa wæpnedhealfe: Kingship and Royal Property from Æthelwulf to Edward the Elder’, in Edward the Elder, ed. Higham and Hill, 264–79 especially 275.

120 Marten, ‘The Shiring of East Anglia’. There are grounds to suspect that even in the late eleventh century at least some people regarded the Tees as the northern limit of the English kingdom: Kapelle, Norman Conquest, 11–13.

121 Whitelock, D., Brett, M. and Brooke, C. N. L., eds., Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, I, a.d., 871–1204 (2 vols., Oxford, 1981), i, 146Google Scholar; Encomium Emmae Reginae, ii.14 (30). Cf. Molyneaux, ‘Formation’, 17–24.

122 Æthelstan: S 407, 412, 413, 416, 418, 419, 425, 426, 458. Edgar: S 700, 702, 706, 709, 716, 744, 762, 764, 767. These lists are not comprehensive.