939-59 Flashcards
(40 cards)
Why are charters important for this period?
Charters for this period are quite large in quantity and are made more important by the fact that there is not much about this period in the ASC, so we tend to rely on charters and The Life of St Dunstan for our information.
- For the central decades of the 10th century there is an impressive number of charters from each year. But then in some years, such as 954, there aren’t any, but then in years like 956, there is a huge peak.
- Overall there were fewer charters issued into the 11th century than in the 10th.
- the period has many different interpretations; wracked by political instability
What happened in 957 and the implications of charter ev.
957 the kingdom was divided between Eadwig and Edgar. Charters indicate that in 957 the courts separated, so that there was now one north and one south of the Thames. And then when Eadwig dies, everything just comes back together.
- – Can we say that this separation looks like a rebellion? Arguably, it can be said that it looks more like there was an agreed division of the kingdom, which enabled both Edgar and Eadwig to issue charters.
- But Edgar was not able to issue coins and Eadwig issued coinage in London (which was in Edgar’s area). This numismatic evidence indicates that Eadwig was nominally in control of the whole region. – This is a prime example of how we can put charters and coins together to form a (somewhat) coherent picture.
striking feature of Eadwig’s charters
- One thing that is striking about Eadwig’s charters is that when you crunch through the estates, is that he issues diplomas in relation to estates which had had a diploma/ charter issued for it recently, perhaps even just a few years prior.
Thus, these were properties that were given by Edmund or Eadred to someone else, meaning that, in effect, Eadwig was appropriating estates for himself and redistributing them. He wasn’t taking land from the church, but rather was taking the lands of one group of thegns to give to another group of thegns.
charters of 956
- In the charters of 956, you can identify four distinct groups. Eadwig was not just churning out charters all year, but rather he issued them at 4 separate royal assemblies. You can tell the order in which these charters were issued by following the evolution of titles; i.e. a thegn becomes an earl. These were groups of charters that were controlled and issued at successive royal assemblies.
attestations of welsh sub-kings…?
- Attestations of Welsh sub-kings only occur in the Æthelstan A charters and in the alliterative charters- is this due to their production? This could be down to a Mercian element/ influence, as Mercians were generally more conscious of Welsh sub-kings than those in Wessex were, simply due to the fact that the Welsh were their neighbours.
Style/ distinctive features of Dunstan B charters
- opposite of alliterative charters; they are short, precise and unembellished
- ‘consensi et subscripti’ is used every time to introduce the act of attestation
- they begin with a dating clause and dispense with proems and invocations
The Dunstan B charters of Eadred’s reign
all disposed of estates in the south and west- geographical dependent
- eadred is absent from the witness lists of charters from his reign- likely he is not present due to illness, so work was undertaken on his behalf
Earliest/ an example of a Dunstan B charter
dated 951, S 555 from Glastonbury and is said to have been written at Dunstan’s command
Keynes on alliterative charters
“delightfully chaotic”
Style features of the alliterative charters
- cast in 3rd person
- issues with bondary clauses- often ammended
- The names, crosses and spaces are all irregular
- witness lists set out in a line not column
- Distinctive prose and alliteration and unusual vocab
- poetic proems
- Sometimes names place of assembly (altho not always)
Surivial of alliterative charters
none in original SS form, can’t know if written by same scribe
Snook on what the alliterative charters and B mean
Snook emphasises that neither the alliterative charters or the Dunstan B charters show that charter production was becoming localised, rather that local ecclesiastics were becoming more involved in the buisness of central government
Koenwald…
- Bishop of worcester 928-58
- Merican
- Served athelstan- sent to Germany
- Died in 58- they end
reasons for supposing koenwald wrote the alliterative charters
- only person to appear on all unabbreviated WL
- Is styled monarchus 4 times- suggesting prestige
- in s5444 (a 949 grant to Æthelmear) his name is in capitals
Historiography of the alliterative charters
First regonised as a group by Birch in 1893 but attracted little attention in their own right, Drogerit dissmissed them as spurious
first 2 alliterative charters examples
first two are both from 940 and are grants of land to Wulfric, a thegn
Preservation/ area of the alliterative charters
- Generally cocnerned with W + E midlands, between thames and humber
- archival distribution of alliterative charters and estates they concerned (with exceptions of glasto and abbingdon) are all north of thames
- Snook suggests geographical pragmatism dictated when coenwald had responsibility devolved to him
- none are preserved in WS archives
no of alliterative charters and date
15/16, snook says 16
range 940- 956 – both Edmund and Eadred
sig of alliterative charters
- opperated alongside/ perhaps in asoc with other agencies
- they stand apart from the mainstram yet still emerge from the heart of the conveyance ceremony
scholarship on hermeneutic latin
Rebecca Stephenson has demonstrated that in the 10th century, pro-reform ecclesiastics developed a shared enthusiasm for hermeneutic’ Latin which they used as a way to broadcast their shared sense of identity and monastic exceptionalism, and …
Snook explores how beyond this it evolved into manifestations in charters, and suggests more than the blossoming of ecclesiastical ideology, but rather that the ecclesiastics were using charters as a means of projecting themselves and their ideas around the kingdom in a way previously only reserved for the king.
charters after aethelstan
- It is clear that after Athelstan’s death, a cartel of top ecclesiastics grew rapidly in England, and rather than establishing regional powerbases from their respective sees they sought to exercise power directly from the centre.
content of the new minster charter
It is quite simple in content, and is essentially a tirade against the secular clergy and how they need to be replaced by the monks. The whole charter is connected to the notion that if you support the monks, then the kingdom with thrive.
- Chapter 14 of the charter gives the monks freedom from royal control, and it also contains a lot of references to the ‘monastery’s property’ but then there is no list of these properties at all.
date of new minster charter
966
information on the monastic reform
- ## How does the monastic reform movement find reflection in the charter evidence? This is a difficult question. We know that Glastonbury was founded in the 940s but there is no foundation charter for it. Barking Abbey has a wonderful alliterative charter from the 950s.
- The net result is that there is very little documentary evidence for the early period of the monastic reform. First main account is the ASC entry for 964. This is an explicit record of Edgar driving secular priests from Winchester and replacing them with monks. There has been a general tendency among historians is to take the side of the monks, but this involves buying into the propaganda the monks push forward.
