‘A king across the sea’: Alfred in continental perspective

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Volumn 36, Issue , 1986, Pages 45-68

  Nelson, Janet L ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84972433999     PISSN: 00804401     EISSN: 14740648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3679059     Document Type: Article

References (157)

1. Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae, ed. I. Heller and G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (hereafter MGH), Scriptores, xiii (Hannover, 1881), 566
2. trans. in English Historical Documents, i, c.500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (2nd edn., 1979) (hereafter EHD), no. 224. I should like to thank John Gillingham, Nicholas Hooper and Simon Keynes for many helpful suggestions, and Mark Blackburn and Michael Metcalf for advice on numismatics.
3. Flodoard, 566.
4. Compare Fulk's letter to Charles the Simple, Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, (hereafter PL) cxxxi, cols. 13–14.
5. Flodoard, 568.
6. Ed. E. Caspar, MGH Epistolae Karolini Aevi, v, 71–72 trans. EHD, no. 222.
7. W. Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages, (2nd edn., 1962), 219–25.
8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (hereafter ASC), s.a. 891, 893 (recte 892)
9. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer (2 vols., Oxford, 1892–9), i. 82, 84.
10. Annales Vedastini, s.a. 879, 892
11. ed. B. von Simson, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum (hereafter SRG) (Hannover, 1909), 44, 72.
12. Hincmar, Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 882, ed. F. Grat, J. Vielliard and S. Clemencet (Paris, 1964), 247
13. Regino, Chronicon, s.a. 892, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG (Hannover, 1890), 138.
14. Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 844, 850, 860
15. Lupus of Ferrières, Correspondence, ed. L. Levillain (2 vols., Paris, 1927–35), ii. 70.
16. P. Stafford, ‘Charles the Bald, Judith and England’, in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. M. Gibson and J. L. Nelson (British Archaeological Reports, International ser., ci, 1981), 137–51.
17. Flodoard, 556.
18. C. Plummer, The Life and Times of Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1902), 78.
19. Plummer, Alfred, 201.
20. H. M. Cam, Local Government in Francia and England (1912), 1, 6–17. This is an appropriate place to salute a fine, and unjustly neglected, pioneering work.
21. Cam, 154–6.
22. Councils and Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church, I, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke (2 pts., Oxford, 1981), i. 6–12
23. trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great (Harmondsworth, 1983), 182–6, with notes at 331–3.
24. P. Grierson, ‘Grimbald of St. Bertin's’, English Historical Review (hereafter EHR), lv (1940), 529–61.
25. Keynes and Lapidge, 331.
26. Vita Ædwardi Regis, ed. F. Barlow (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1962), 75–9
27. F. Barlow, The English Church 1000–1066: A Constitutional History (1963), 117, 122, 302.
28. E.g. MGH, Epistolae, viii, pt. 1, ed. E. Perels (Munich, 1975), nos. 108, 131, 134, 179, pp. 52, 70, 76, 168.
29. Compare Lupus, Correspondence, ii. 70.
30. EHD, no. 223, p. 883.
31. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), 150, though cf. the remarks at 142.
32. J. M. Bately, The Literary Prose of King Alfred's Reign: Translation or Transformation? (1980), 10–12.
33. M. B. Parkes, ‘The palaeography of the Parker Manuscript of the Chronicle’, Anglo-Saxon England (hereafter ASE), v (1976), 149–71, at 163–6.
34. J. L. Nelson, ‘The problem of King Alfred's royal anointing’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xviii (1967), 145–63
35. but see now Nelson, ‘The earliest royal Ordo: some historical and liturgical aspects’, in Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government presented to Walter Ullmann, ed. B. Tierney and P. Linehan (Cambridge, 1980), 29–48.
36. Wallace-Hadrill, 148
37. P. Wormald in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. J. Campbell (Oxford, 1982), 155.
38. L. Webster, in The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066, ed. J. Backhouse, D. H. Turner and L. Webster (1984), 18–19.
39. J. M. Hassall and D. Hill, ‘Pont de l'Arche: Frankish influence on the West Saxon burh?’, Archaeological Journal, cxxvii (1970), 188–95.
40. My inferences from Receuil des Actes de Charles II le Chauve, ed. G. Tessier (3 vols., Paris, 1943–55), esp. iii. 38–93.
41. D. Whitelock, ‘Some charters in the name of King Alfred’, in Saints, Scholars and Heroes, ed. M.H. King and W. M. Stevens (2 vols., Collegeville, Minnesota, 1979), i. 77–98
42. See also S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), 14–83.
43. Keynes and Lapidge, 177.
44. As calculated by Keynes and Lapidge, 324 n. 97.
45. Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), c. 91, p. 78, and c. 106, pp. 92–4
46. trans. Keynes and Lapidge, 102, 109–10.
47. J. Campbell, ‘The significance of the Anglo-Norman state in the administrative history of western Europe’, in Histoire Comparée de l'Administration (IVe–XVIII siècles), ed. W. Paravicini and K. F. Werner, Beiheft der Francia, ix (Munich, 1980), 117–34, at 121.
48. Cam, 120–7
49. J. Martindale, ‘The kingdom of Aquitaine and the “dissolution of the Carolingian fisc”’, Francia, xi (1984), 131–91.
50. Decretum Gelasii, referred to in Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 27 (ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896) i. 48)
51. Vulgate, III Reg., iv–v. I am grateful to Professor R. Markus and Dr D. Howlett for their suggestions here.
52. Cam, I. For recent surveys, see K. F. Werner, ‘Missus-marchio-comes’, in Histoire Comparée de l'Administration, 190–239
53. R. McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (1983), 77–105.
54. Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 867, 868, pp. 140–1.
55. See further Nelson, ‘Dispute settlement in Carolingian West Francia’, in Dispute Settlement in Early Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1986).
56. Cam, 143.
57. Asser, c. 12, pp. 9–10
58. trans. Keynes and Lapidge, 70.
59. P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (Royal Historical Society, Guides and Handbooks, viii, 1968), no. 362
60. trans. EHD, no. 100. Wulfhere was ealdorman of Wiltshire, target of the Danish attack on Wessex in 877/8. His successor was in office by 887 and died in 897. 877/8 therefore seems the likeliest date for Wulfhere's defection.
61. Asser, c. 53, p. 41; c. 83, p. 69 as amended by Stevenson
62. see Keynes and Lapidge, 266.
63. Asser apparently misunderstood the phrase in ASC, s.a. 886 (ed. Plummer, i. 80); but his own interpretation presumably could make sense to him and his contemporaries.
64. Einhard, Vita Karoli, ed. G. Waitz, MGH, SRG (Hannover, 1911), c. 20, pp. 25–6.
65. Receuil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. M. Bouquet et al. 24 vols. (Paris, 1738–1904) v. 758.
66. Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 834, p. 15.
67. MGH, Capitularia Regum Francorum, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause (2 vols., Berlin, 1883–97), ii, no. 242, p. 158.
68. Keynes and Lapidge, 175.
69. P. Stafford, ‘The King's wife in Wessex 800–1066’, Past & Present, xc (1981), 3–27.
70. Assar, cc. 13–15, pp. 11–14.
71. Keynes and Lapidge, 231–2.
72. Asser, c. 16, p. 14
73. ASC, s.a. 855, ed. Plummer, i. 66.
74. Asser, c. 18, p. 17.
75. D. Dumville, ‘The Aetheling: a study in Anglo-Saxon constitutional history’, ASE, viii (1979), 1–33, at 1–2, 24
76. Keynes and Lapidge 240, n. 56.
77. Asser, c. 29, p. 24, names the parents of Alfred's wife, but not the wife herself.
78. Her place in Alfred's will was relatively insignificant: Keynes and Lapidge, 177.
79. Sawyer, no. 350.
80. Nelson, ‘The problem of Alfred's anointing’
81. M. Lapidge, ‘Some Latin poems as evidence for the reign of Athelstan’, ASE, ix (1981), 61–98, at 79–81.
82. Nelson, ‘The Second English Ordo’, in Politics and Ritual in the Early Middle Ages (1986), 361–74.
83. For Charlemagne's project, see P. Classen, ‘Karl der Grosse und der Thronfolge im Frankenreich’, in Festschrift für H. Heimpel (3 vols., Göttingen, 1972), iii. 109–34.
84. Nelson, ‘Second English Ordo’, 367.
85. Keynes and Lapidge, 175 (pace their comment at 256).
86. J. B. Gillinghem, The Kingdom of Germany in the High Middle Ages (1971), 9–10.
87. ASC ‘D’, s.a. 924, ed. Plummer, i. 105.
88. Compare A. Williams, ‘Some notes and considerations on problems connected with English royal succession, 860–1066’, Proc. of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, i (1978), 144–67, at 149–52
89. also S. Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's books’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss (Cambridge, 1985), 143–201, at 187.
90. ASC, s.a. 900 (recte 899), 904 (recte 901), 905 (recte 902), ed. Plummer, i. 92–94
91. Keynes and Lapidge, 292.
92. H. R. Loyn, ‘The term ealdorman in the translations prepared at the time of King Alfred’, EHR, lxviii (1953), 513–525
93. R. H. C. Davis, ‘Alfred the Great: propaganda and truth’, History, lvi (1971), 169–82.
94. A. P. Smyth, Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles 850–880 (Oxford, 1977), 246–8.
95. N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), 201–6.
96. See also R. Fleming, ‘Monastic lands and England's defence in the Viking age’, EHR, c (1985), 247–65.
97. Werner, ‘Bedeutende Adelsfamilien im Reich Karls des Grossen’, in Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ed. W. Braunfels and H. Beumann (4 vols., Düsseldorf, 1965), i. 83–142, at 122
98. (trans. T. Reuter in The Medieval Nobility, ed. Reuter (Amsterdam-London, 1978), 137–202).
99. Prose preface to Old English version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, Keynes and Lapidge, 125.
100. Keynes and Lapidge, 175.
101. ASC, s.a. 874, ed. Plummer, i. 72.
102. See P. Stafford, The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1985), 109–11.
103. Sawyer, no. 362
104. EHD, no. 100, p. 542.
105. C. S. S. Lyon, ‘Historical problems of Anglo-Saxon coinage (2)’, British Numismatic Journal, xxxvii (1968), 216–38, at 236.
106. See also R. H. M. Dolley and C. M. Blunt, ‘The chronology of the coins of Ælfred the Great 871–99’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies presented to F. M. Stenton, ed. R. H. M. Dolley (1961), 77–95, at 78–82
107. M. Dolley, ‘Alfred the Great's abandonment of the concept of periodic recoinage’, in Studies in Numismatic Method presented to Philip Grierson, ed. C. N. L. Brooke et al. (Cambridge, 1983), 153–60.
108. On the significance of the ‘REX ANGLO’ inscription, see W. Stevenson, in his edition of Asser, 151–2.
109. Sawyer, no. 218.
110. Stevenson, in Asser, 300.
111. Sawyer, no. 219
112. see C. Hart, ‘Athelstan “half king” and his family’, ASE, ii (1973). 115–44, at 116–8.
113. Annales Regni Francorum, s.a. 787, ed. F. Kurze, MGH, SRG (Hannover, 1895), 78
114. Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 869, p. 157.
115. D. Whitelock, ‘The importance of the battles of Edington’, reprinted in From Bede to Alfred (1980), XIII, 6–15, at 8.
116. Asser, c. 77, p. 62.
117. Chronic on Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson (2 vols., Rolls ser., ii, 1858), i, 50
118. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (Rolls ser., lii, 1870), 191.
119. Plummer, in his edn. of ASC, ii. 113.
120. Sawyer, no. 354.
121. Hincmar, De Coercendo Raptu, in PL, cxxv, cols. 1017–32
122. Regino, De Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis Libri Duo, II, clxxxiv–vi, cxcix, cciv–ccxx, ccxxii, ccxxiv–ccxxix, in PL, cxxxii, cols. 319–22, 325–30
123. Council of Trosly, Acta, ed. J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conci-liorum nova et amplissima collectio (31 vols., Venice, 1757–98), xviii, cols. 286–94.
124. Boniface, Epistolae no. 74, ed. M. Tangl, MGH, Epp. Selectae, i (Berlin, 1916), 156 (trans. EHD, no. 178).
125. ‘… sinuosum set et curtum’: MGH, Epp. Karolini Aevi, v, 293–4 (trans. EHD, no. 221).
126. Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, in Symeonis Monachi Opera, ed. T. Arnold (2 vols., Rolls ser., lxxv, 1882–5), i. 203, 209 (trans. EHD, no. 6)
127. P. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings (1982), 137–8.
128. A. Verhulst, ‘La genese du regime domanial classique en France’, in Agricoltura e mondo rurale in Occidente, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull' alto Medioevo, xiii (Spoleto, 1966), 135–60
129. L. Musset, ‘Signification et destinée des domaines ex-cencriques pour les abbayes … de la Gaule’, in Sous la Règie de Saint Benoit. Structures monastiques et sociétés en France du Moyen Age a l'époque moderne, Hautes études médiévales et modernes, xlvii (Geneva-Paris, 1982), 167–84
130. J.-P. Devroey, ‘Un monastère dans l'économic d'échanges’, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xxxix (1984), 570–89.
131. R. McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms (1977).
132. See also F. Prinz, Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1971).
133. Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 859, p. 80.
134. See S. Epperlein, Herrschaft und Volk im karolingischen Imperium (Berlin, 1969), 49–50.
135. P. Riché, ‘Conséquences des invasions normandes sur la culture monastique dans l'Occident franc’, in I Normanni, Settimane di Studio, xvi (Spoleto, 1968), 705–21
136. (reprinted in Riché, Instruction et vie religieuse dans le Haut Moyen Age (1981), no. 20).
137. Lupus, Correspondence, ii. 138.
138. Miracula Sancti Bertini, c. 2, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH, Scriptores, xv (Hannover, 1887–8), 510 (written in the 890s).
139. P. Fouracre, ‘The context of the OHG Ludwigslied’, Medium Aevum, liv (1985), 87–103.
140. Hincmar, Acta of Synod of St. Macra de Fismes, c. 8, in PL, cxxv, col. 1085.
141. Notker, Gesta Karoli, ii, cc. 18, 19, ed. H. F. Haefele, MGH, SRG (Berlin, 1959), 88–90.
142. G. Schneider, Erzbischof Fulco von Reims (883–900) und das Frankenreich (Munich, 1975), 172–82.
143. Wallace-Hadrill, 149
144. Asser, cc. 92, 93, pp. 79–81.
145. Nelson, ‘Queens as Jezebels: the careers of Brunhild and Balthild’, in Medieval Women, ed. D. Baker (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, i, 1978), 31–77, at 52–73.
146. See P. Wormald, ‘Bede, the Bretwaldas and the origins of the gens Anglorum’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. Wormald (Oxford, 1983), 99–129.
147. Alfred's Laws, c. 41, Keynes and Lapidge, 168 with 309 n. 24.
148. Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pt 3.
149. Sawyer, no. 223
150. (trans. EHD, no. 99).
151. Eahlstan and Heahmund of Sherborne are the only English bishops known to have played a military role in the 9th century: ASC, s.a. 823 (recte 825), ed. Plummer, i. 60, 845 (recte 848), p. 64, and 871, p. 72.
152. I took a rather different view of this evidence in ‘The Church's military service in the ninth century’, Studies in Church History, xx (1983), 15–30, at 18–19. Further reflection has convinced me that Hincmar's contrast between Frankish and English arrangements was more firmly grounded in contemporary realities than I allowed in 1983.
153. Nelson, ‘Charles the Bald and the Church in town and countryside’, Studies in Church History, xvi (1979), 103–18.
154. Asser, cc. 53, 55, pp. 41, 44
155. The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1962), 42.
156. Asser, c. 76, p. 60.
157. Whitelock, ‘Importance of Edington’, 9.