October 14, 2025 • 24 mins
Why does William the Conqueror get all of the credit when Æthelstan was king of a united England in 927? David Woodman (Professor of History at Cambridge University) joins us to talk about his new book The First King of England.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hi, I
am so thrilled to be joining you with a fantastic
interview with professor of history at Cambridge University David Woodman,
whose new book The First King of England talks about
(00:21):
I would say the very uncelebrated, really mostly unknown history
of the early medieval king Ethelsten in England who united
the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia. Am I
missing anything?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, that's That's exactly what he did. And you're absolutely right, Danny.
He's very little known, and you know, I hope that
he gets better known in the in the years that come.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So just to dive right in, you call the year
nine hundred and twenty seven the birth of England. Can
you talk a little bit about why you think that is?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, of course, So Ethelstein first became king in the
year nine twenty four and he had a bit of
a struggle to cement his position on the throne. There
was various opposition to him, a bit of hostility from Winchester,
which was the sort of heart of West Saxon politics
in Wessex, and only a few years later in nine
two seven, he becomes the first king of the West
Saxon line ever to have brought together all of the
(01:18):
formerly independent kingdoms that you mentioned into one and creates
the Kingdom of the English for the first time. Now,
what specifically happens in ninety seven is that there had
been a Viking king, a man called Sitrich, who had
been ruling in York in the southern part of Northumbria
in the years that preceded this moment. But he dies
in ninety seven, and this gives Athelstan an opportunity to
(01:40):
march northwards, take York in Northumbria under his control and
cements rule there. It's an extraordinary moment and for me,
the year ninety seven should be one of the most
memorable dates in English history.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And so after he sort of takes this opportunity in York,
he'll go further north get the submission of kings from
Welsh charitor. Worry is the King of the Scots a
few other kingdoms. Is he contemporaneously calling himself the King
of England.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're absolutely right. So after he takes York, he marches
further north. He goes to a place called amont Bridge,
which is just south of modern Penrith. Here where in
the northwest of modern England, and an amazing ceremony takes
place where various kings from Wales, a king from Scotland,
and a ruler from Northumbria they all agree to recognize
the superiority of Athelstan that day. And it's we think
(02:29):
it's a very carefully choreographed occasion. It takes place in
this area aimon Bridge, which is topographically significant. There are
ancient sites there. There's a Roman fort called Bricarvon, There's
various ancient henges there. So it's a landscape of authority
that Athelstan is during from. And yes, almost immediately after
this moment in ninety seventy, very quickly calls himself the
King of the English, the Rex Anglorum in Latin. Amazingly,
(02:52):
he has a poet who travels with him in his
retinue to aimont Bridge, and he assigns the poet this
job of writing. This wonderful poet him back to celebrate
what was happening in ninety seven, and we get this
these wonderful verses saying you know that Athelstan lives glorious
through his deeds because he's made Saxonia for the first time,
and bi Saxonia the poet means England. And what's really interesting, Dane,
(03:15):
is we don't actually have the word for England at
this moment. It's only first used in the early eleventh centuries,
so a bit later. Basically, we're getting to grips with
very new political concepts, new ideas of one people. So
it's really the beginning of all of this.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Stuff, and we're celebrating the eleven hundredth anniversary. I mean,
we just celebrated it in September, right in nine hundred
and twenty five.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, as I mentioned, he first became king in ninety four,
he wasn't actually formally crowned king until the fourth of
September nine two two five, and that sort of delay
speaks to the difficulty he had in establishing himself in
the first place. And you're absolutely right. Just the other
week it was the eleven hundredth anniversary of his coronation.
There were wonderful celebrations in Kingston. Hundreds of people gathered.
There was even the naming of a train in Athol
(04:00):
stand's honor. So it's fantastic to think of a train
going down the National rail network.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Something for poets to write about now, exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Something for poets to write about now. So it was
a fantastic occasion. They even brewed a special Athelstan beer
for the day as well. And we're gearing up now
for in two years time the eleven hundred sorry anniversary
of England's birth in twenty twenty seven, So that should
be a momentous anniversary for us to prepare for.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I want to ask you, I feel like, from an
outsider's perspective, the year that gets all the credit is
ten sixty six. And even in terms of early medieval kings,
rather Alfred the Great and ethel Read the Unready seemed
to be more names that lay people might know. Why
do you think that ethel Stan isn't really in the
public consciousness very much?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, it's a really good question. I think poor old
Athelstan didn't have very good pr basically at his court.
His grandfather, Alfred the Great, just as you say, Dana,
was much more famous, and Alfred was fortunate in that
he had a contemporary biographer, a Welsh cleric named who
was writing a biographical account of his life. He was
employed by Alfred to paint a good picture of Alfred,
(05:07):
and that survived, and that cemented the good reputation that
Alfred had. Now, if Athelstan ever had such a person,
you know, we don't have the text that survive.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The poet wasn't good enough.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
The poet wasn't good enough. You know. It's a relatively
short poem when compared to the text of Assa. So
I think Athelstein has suffered in that sense, definitely in
historiographical terms. And the phenomenon of ten sixty six that
you mentioned is really interesting to me. I mean, I
did wonder a bit when writing the book, you know,
does it say something about the sort of self deprecating
attitude of the Brits that we sort of think about
our history as beginning with a big defeat rather than
(05:40):
this formation of the English Kingdom in the first place.
It's quite interesting that that's what we think about, and
that's where history kind of begins for us. I think
he's a bit of a victim of historiography in various ways.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
But after Athelstan dies, England doesn't stay united, right.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yes, And this is a big aspect of Atholestan's reign.
So seventy brings it all together for the first time,
and we can only imagine the challenges that would have
confronted him after he'd done this for the first time.
Lots of people who would have tried to overthrow him.
They would have been resentful of the authority and the
power that he achieved. We know this because in nine
three seven, for example, there was the famous Battle of Brunnenburg,
(06:17):
where a Viking coalition came together and tried to overthrow him.
And there's been all sorts of debates about where that
battle took place, but a major encounter in his reign.
And then, yes, only a couple of years later, he
dies in nine three nine. We don't know anything about
the circumstances in which he died. And then the Kingdom
of the English that he had built it sort of fragments.
A Viking named Olaf Gudfredson comes over from Dublin and
(06:40):
he's able to take control in York once more. So
York is ceded to Viking authority once again in nine
and three nine. So yes, it breaks down, and I
think it speaks to I guess just how successful he
had been as an individual. It just shows that so
much rested on his shoulders. He must have been, I think,
a very ruthless person, a very able politician to do
(07:01):
all these things, and certainly in martial terms, very very powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
But you know, what makes a good king is being
a good king for the moment. We had a conversation
with our friend, the brilliant historian Dan Jones about Henry
the Fifth, and he made the point that what made
Henry the fifth such an excellent king as he was
the right king for the time during which he lived.
And I think we can probably say the same thing
about Ethelstan.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, it's another really good point. I mean, I think
that if we think about his lineage, the way in
which he had been brought up, he would have seen
the example of his grandfather Alfred the Great, whose reign
was beset by Viking raids. It was actually Alfred who
recognized that in the face of these external attacks of Vikings,
it was really important that the English kingdoms, as much
as possible, were internally joined together, if you like. So,
(07:48):
under Alfred we get something called the Kingdom of the
Anglo Saxons, which is adjoining together of Wessex and mercy
a broadly speaking, and also under Alfred we get the
idea of the English coming through in various texts. Alfred
begins to talk about what the English people are and
he uses the Old English word angel kuhn to describe this.
So I think that Ethelstan, sorry, is really taking these
(08:08):
ideas that have been formed and were nascent in Alfred's
court and drives them forward. So he's absolutely a man
of the moment. He probably saw the merits in that
in warding off future Viking attacks.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I hope I'm not mixing up his early medieval figures
with similar names. But was it Alfred the Great who
was able to marry his daughter ethel Flood diplomatically and
sort of unite kingdoms?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Exactly right?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yes, Do we know if ethel Stan was able to
conquer territory diplomatically or do we assume it was more
through military force.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think it's probably a mix, is the answer. So
going back to your points by ethel Flaggs, I mean,
she is a fascinating character in her own right. It's
very unusual in the early medieval period that the women
are given prominence in our sources, and she does we
have a whole set of animals.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
She's a personal favorite.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean she's such an interesting character.
She's deserving of a biography in her own right. And
Tom Holland has written a biography of Ethel Flood. She's
a fascinating, fascinating person, daughter of Alfred and sent to
Mercier and is able to join Wessex and Mercy together
or help in that process. And we think that actually
Adelestan was sent to her court as a child to
(09:20):
be brought up there, so she would have been a
very important example for Athelstan of you know, what it
was to be successful and strong leader. And I think Adelestan,
you know, he definitely would have succeeded or been successful
by combining both negotiation and political alliances that he was
making in negotiated terms, but also with Marshall's skill. I
think it would have been both of those things that
would have enabled his success.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Do we know if he had any sort of legacy
on the continent in Europe at the time or was
he more of a domestic ruler.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, I mean this is another extraordinary aspect of his reign.
So as I mentioned, he becomes king in the first place,
in quite difficult circumstances, creates England very quickly in ninety seven,
and connections between English kingdoms or other and Europe have
been long standing by these points, but we've never before
had a monarch who has a kind of concerted foreign policy.
And it becomes very clear that Athelstan does. His father,
(10:12):
who was a man called Edward the Elder, actually married
three times in total, and that meant that Athelstan had
quite a large number of half brothers and half sisters.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Dangerous when you're trying to consolidate power.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Very dangerous. Yeah, it was dangerous to Atholstan, and there
are indications that some of his half brothers posed a
threat to his rulin and in fact, at the beginning
we think he shared rule with a half brother called Elfweyarde.
But one of the things he does strategically is he
seems to arrange a number of key marriage alliances between
some of his half sisters and contemporary rulers in Europe.
So places like West Frankier, East Frankier and Bergen. He
(10:48):
marries these sisters into these royal houses and he sets
himself up has been a key player on the European
stage as well.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You mentioned before that sort of in contrast to Alfred
the Great, there was no survive contemporary biography of Ethelstan,
and so as a historian, how do you approach your research.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it's one of the I guess frustrations but also
the joys in a way of doing this kind of
work that there are so many gaps in our records
that you sort of have to be quite imaginative and
trying to overcome those gaps, you know, and trying to
understand how you can piece together the life of an
early medieval monarch like cattle Stan. I mean a big
challenge when sitting down to write a biography of Athelstan
is that you can't even do it chronologically because there
(11:29):
are just so many gaps in our records, so you
have to do it thematically. But actually, one thing that
we're very fortunate about with Athlestan is that we have
a whole set of contemporary royal documents, so land grants
known as royal diplomas that he was making, and a
set of law codes, and in fact a whole set
of very interesting coins, thousands of coins in his name,
which means that we can recreated a lot about his
(11:50):
royal ambition, his royal policies. These documents take us right
to the center of the royal assembly, you know, all
the things that are going on at the center of politics.
So really that's the place to go on, I think
when we're thinking about Athelstan, we also have an early
twelfth century text written by one of the greatest Anglo
Norman historians, a man called William of Malmsbury, who includes
probably the longest narrative account of Rattlestan's life. And the
(12:13):
problem is that because of the sort of two hundred
year gap between when William was writing and when Athelstan live,
we don't always know just how much we can trust
what William was saying and where was he getting his
information from. So again you have to be a bit
cautious when using those details. But we can make sort
of cautious progress when looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
His text, and because you're basing it sort of on
these sources, these legal documents, these coins. You mentioned that
by necessity you imagine that Ethelstan was quite a ruthless person.
What else have you been able to glean about his character?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, well, if you're thinking about the basics of what
did he look like, what did he like to eat?
You know, what kind of person was he? I mean,
we simply don't know. We just don't have those details
from us surviving contemporary sources. We do have an image
of him in a manuscript, an early time century manuscript
in Cambridge in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College.
It's an extraordinary image of him with his head bowed
(13:07):
looking at a manuscript in front of Saint Cuthbert. We
don't know whether he's giving it to Saint Cuthbert or
he's trying to show that someone who's in favor of
Saint Cuthbert or a learned king. What's the exact message here?
And one of the ways in which it's very interesting
is that it's the earliest surviving portrait of any English monarch.
But does it show the real Athelstan We just don't know.
But another aspect to Ethelestan that's really really important is
(13:27):
that he was a keen patron and sponsor of learning
too of religion, and there's lots of evidence to the
fact that he was encouraging scholars from across Europe to
come to this court and to exchange ideas and favored
progress and learning in various forms.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
What do you think Ethelstan's influence today is, because obviously
the Kingdom of England didn't stay united, it fell apart
after his death, it comes back together again. But do
you think there's a line we can draw from Ethelstan
too today?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think it's very hard. Sometimes I'm very warey of
sort of rowing a line from so far back to
directly to today. But for me, I mean Atholestan is
England's founding father. That's really very important. And yes things
broke down when he died, but he was the kind
of architect of it all, if you see what I mean.
He was the person who had the idea that the
blueprint for it and made it a vague reality in
(14:18):
the early tenth century, and certainly during his reign it
was a reality to varying degrees. And you know, it's
not like he managed to create this one, you know,
homogeneous place overnight. That would have been different amounts of
people buying into it depending on where they lived, and
all sorts of differences of belief and language and all
sorts of things. But I think in terms of the
blueprint and the architecture of what England could be Athelstan
(14:38):
really should be thought of as our founding figure.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
When did you first become interested in Ethelstan?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Actually as an undergraduate student twenty odd years ago. I mean,
I remember going up to study history and one of
the first essays I did was on Athelstan. I was
only dimly aware of his name at that point, and
there was no modern biography of him then. Now I
was amazed that when I read about it him all
these achievements, all these things that he'd done, and I
hadn't known about him. Having grown up in the UK
through the UK schooling system, I just hadn't found out
(15:06):
about him. So that was when I first found out
about Applestan and became fascinated by him ever since.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
What made you decide at this point to write the biography.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I've worked on various aspects of Fatholstan's reign over the
years academically, and I really have a close attachment to
his royal documents as diplomas that we mentioned earlier. They're
so difficult in terms of the way that they're written.
So they're written in very florid and learned Latin by
a royal scribe is known by the title Appolestan a.
And these documents emerge just at the moment that he
(15:44):
brings England together for the first time in nine two seven.
So in the wake of that political achievement, it's very
clear that he's deploying this royal scribe to try and
celebrate in literary terms what he's done in political terms.
And it seemed to me that these documents were unlike
anything else else from the early medieval period. There's nothing
like them before and nothing like them that comes afterwards.
(16:04):
And so I became fascinated by the style of Latin,
the rhyme, the alliteration, the chiasmus, the use of new
words that he invents. You know, how did this person
do it? It seemed to me he was a genius. Actually,
so for me, the way in was through these royal documents,
because they were so taking us right to the heart
of the Royal Assembly. And you know, you can imagine
Attlestan at the end of the Royal diplomas. There are
these long lists of witnesses, people who were present at
(16:26):
the meeting of the Royal Assembly where these documents would
have been read out, and you can imagine the effect
it would have had to hear this incredible Latin read
out by the King or one of his advisors to
those assembled, and the witness list they contained names of
people from all over the English Kingdom for the first time,
so not just people from Wessex and Mercia, but we
get these wonderful you know, these wacky old Norse names
from Northumbria, Welsh kings, Scottish kings that are all there.
(16:49):
He's even able to wield a degree of authority over
these British kings as well, and they all would have
heard this amazing Latin. So that was the way in
for me. I love these documents.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It's a very cinematic scene too, what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
These gatherings would have been like in reality. At the
end of these diplomas, we have some seventy to eighteen
names listed. If you imagine that all of these people
had their own retinues traveling with them across Britain, there's
probably four or five hundred people present at these occasions.
I mean, they must have been extraordinary gatherings. They moved around,
mainly in the southwest in Wessex, and yes, how did
they work. I mean, just looking at the witnesses, they
(17:23):
sort of suggest to you a degree of sort of
democracy is obviously not the right word, but that kind
of thing, a degree of discussion and politics going on.
But of course Applestan had the last word. He was
the person in charge of all of this. But yeah,
they really bring to life, you know, the way in
which these early English kingdoms were governed.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Did Ethelstan have any direct errors?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
So one of the very remarkable features about Athelestan's reign
is that he didn't marry. There's no record of him
marrying during his lifetime from contemporary sources, and we only
have one reference to a potential daughter, but we think
it's an erroneous reference from a late text from me
ly they just got it wrong because the person names
that's the same name as one of his sisters. We
think the early author just mistook a sister for a daughter.
(18:05):
So he didn't have any direct heirs. So when he
dies in ninetenty nine, the throne passes to Tarf brother Edmund,
and one theory, which is written by the early twelfth
century author William of Malmesbury, is that he deliberately didn't
married because it would have caused more complexity in the
succession that if he'd produced his own heirs, there could
have been more challenges to who succeeded afterwards, So that's
one theory.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Was there not sort of an established notion that the
child of the current heir would become the next king.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So there was no strict rule of primogeniture at this point.
There was a broad understanding that somebody of royal blood
would succeed, and the old English term that sources use
for that is someone who is an atheling, so someone
who was literally thrown worthy. But the reality was that
when a king died, you know, everything was up for grabs,
and it depended on all sorts of things like you know,
military power, status, but also who had the backing of
(18:56):
the Royal Assembly at that moment, so it was very
much up for grabs. Son had experienced that himself, as
I mentioned at the beginning, when his half brother Alfreard
seems to have ruled alongside him at least for a
small amount of time.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's fascinating to me because in a modern sense, I
think we have this very modern idea of legacy in
you know, wanting to pass on your legacy to a child.
Where Ethelstan was so driven to unite these kingdoms under
one rule, and yet he didn't really abide by that
contemporary notion that he would pass it on to his
own dynasty.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, it's a good point and it stands a little
bit in contrast with if I think about his grandfather Alfred.
Remarkable feature of Alpha's ren is that we have his
will surviving, so we actually have what he wrote down
what he wanted to happen after he died. It doesn't
say in explicit terms to whom he wanted the throne
to pass, but he's very clear in saying that Edward,
his son and Athelstan's father, is to receive the majority
(19:49):
of estates in Wessex, in the heart of Wessex, and
it looks very clear that he was therefore being designated
the official successor to Alfred. And we just don't have
that kind of detail from Athelstan's rehn. And again it
could be in accidents of survival of our sources, but
we have no indication that he was, you know, laying
the foundations for someone else. One thing to say is
that Edmund Ishard brother does seem to succeed without any
(20:09):
real issues, So maybe it had been agreed, just wasn't
written down and actually it was quite a smooth transition
in power in Wessex. At least.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Forgive me if this makes no sense. But because there
are so many gaps in the story, I wonder for
you as a historian, is there like a holy grail
text that you would be desperate to find that you
think would be able to fill in the gaps of
ethel Stand's life. Is there sort of one text that
has been talked around They're like a missing piece.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
One of the joies of doing early medical histories is
actually that new things appear all the time in various ways.
And in fact, as I was writing the book, a
bag of coins, some of which were in Athelstan's name,
were found in Rome, and you know, it's terribly exciting
to wonder what these might say about Athelstan or those
traveling in the early tenth century to Rome. And the
same with texts. Even actually that sometimes in archival work
(20:59):
peace people find new copies of diplomas is a very
regular thing, or they find new copies of texts in
various ways, either texts that were written in the early
tenth century or copies of those texts which you know
that people haven't realized in the archives quite what they
have in front of them, so it's really exciting and
actually one of the reasons I love working in this
area is that there's always a chance for new material
to be found. I guess one thing I would really
wish for with Cathlestan specifically is we have you know,
(21:22):
the main contemporary narrative text is something called the Anglo
Saxon Chronicle. Survives in a number of principal manuscript versions,
and unfortunately for athlestands right in it, it feels relatively silent,
apart from a wonderful poem that it inserts in the
year nine three seven to commemorate the Battle of Brunanberg.
If I had a wish, it would be to discover
a manuscript that had more detail about Athelstan.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I will say, seeing physical artifacts from those times is
so striking to me. I was in Oxford last summer
saw the Alfred Jewel at the Ashmolean Museum, and to me,
that was sort of the moment. I had never really
been very interested in early medieval history. It sort of
felt very abstract me. But when you can see something tangible,
I think it really makes it come to life.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That's a wonderful object that takes us to the heart
of what's going on in the eight eighties when Alfred
is on the throne, and it's a moment when the
Vikings have left. He's managed to get rid of the
Vikings for the first time, that he's got a period
of peace. And one of the effects of the Viking raids,
we think learning and culture suffered across English kingdoms, and
Alfred put in place a program of revival, and one
of the things he sends out is an astyl, a
(22:25):
sort of pointer to help with reading texts, and the
Alpha Jewel seems to be the end of one of
those things. And there's a very moving in scripture and
it's saying Alfred ordered me to be made. Putting it
in the first person, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing.
So I can quite understand why that brought it to
life for you.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Well, I also just want to say, your book, The
First King of England, really does bring this period of
history to life for me too, and I think we'll
do the same for all of us who, unfortunately I
add a less than stellar Latin education and can't appreciate
the poetry of the primary sources.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Thank you so much, Jane. That's really kind of you.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And before I let you go, can you give us
a little preview. I imagine you're going to be involved in
the anniversary celebrations in twenty twenty seven, but can you
give us a little bit of a preview of things
that we might be looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We're just coming together as a small group of us
just thinking about, you know, what could be done, what's
the best way to commemorate Athelstein and think about that
very very important anniversary. Various people from across the country
have been in touch with us saying that they're thinking
along similar terms. I know there's a big group of
people up in the Northwest in Cumbria near aimon Bridge
where it all happened in ninety seven. They're thinking about
(23:31):
various things that they could do. Hopefully we'll be putting
up a website soon actually with where we're trying to
bring together details about what's going on and trying to
bring together ideas as well, So stay tuned for that website.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Thank you so much. Professor Woodman is shedding light on Ethelstan,
the first King of England in his book of that name.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Thank you, Dinnan. Thanks for having Me.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hi, I
am so thrilled to be joining you with a fantastic
interview with professor of history at Cambridge University David Woodman,
whose new book The First King of England talks about
(00:21):
I would say the very uncelebrated, really mostly unknown history
of the early medieval king Ethelsten in England who united
the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia. Am I
missing anything?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, that's That's exactly what he did. And you're absolutely right, Danny.
He's very little known, and you know, I hope that
he gets better known in the in the years that come.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So just to dive right in, you call the year
nine hundred and twenty seven the birth of England. Can
you talk a little bit about why you think that is?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, of course, So Ethelstein first became king in the
year nine twenty four and he had a bit of
a struggle to cement his position on the throne. There
was various opposition to him, a bit of hostility from Winchester,
which was the sort of heart of West Saxon politics
in Wessex, and only a few years later in nine
two seven, he becomes the first king of the West
Saxon line ever to have brought together all of the
(01:18):
formerly independent kingdoms that you mentioned into one and creates
the Kingdom of the English for the first time. Now,
what specifically happens in ninety seven is that there had
been a Viking king, a man called Sitrich, who had
been ruling in York in the southern part of Northumbria
in the years that preceded this moment. But he dies
in ninety seven, and this gives Athelstan an opportunity to
(01:40):
march northwards, take York in Northumbria under his control and
cements rule there. It's an extraordinary moment and for me,
the year ninety seven should be one of the most
memorable dates in English history.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And so after he sort of takes this opportunity in York,
he'll go further north get the submission of kings from
Welsh charitor. Worry is the King of the Scots a
few other kingdoms. Is he contemporaneously calling himself the King
of England.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're absolutely right. So after he takes York, he marches
further north. He goes to a place called amont Bridge,
which is just south of modern Penrith. Here where in
the northwest of modern England, and an amazing ceremony takes
place where various kings from Wales, a king from Scotland,
and a ruler from Northumbria they all agree to recognize
the superiority of Athelstan that day. And it's we think
(02:29):
it's a very carefully choreographed occasion. It takes place in
this area aimon Bridge, which is topographically significant. There are
ancient sites there. There's a Roman fort called Bricarvon, There's
various ancient henges there. So it's a landscape of authority
that Athelstan is during from. And yes, almost immediately after
this moment in ninety seventy, very quickly calls himself the
King of the English, the Rex Anglorum in Latin. Amazingly,
(02:52):
he has a poet who travels with him in his
retinue to aimont Bridge, and he assigns the poet this
job of writing. This wonderful poet him back to celebrate
what was happening in ninety seven, and we get this
these wonderful verses saying you know that Athelstan lives glorious
through his deeds because he's made Saxonia for the first time,
and bi Saxonia the poet means England. And what's really interesting, Dane,
(03:15):
is we don't actually have the word for England at
this moment. It's only first used in the early eleventh centuries,
so a bit later. Basically, we're getting to grips with
very new political concepts, new ideas of one people. So
it's really the beginning of all of this.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Stuff, and we're celebrating the eleven hundredth anniversary. I mean,
we just celebrated it in September, right in nine hundred
and twenty five.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, as I mentioned, he first became king in ninety four,
he wasn't actually formally crowned king until the fourth of
September nine two two five, and that sort of delay
speaks to the difficulty he had in establishing himself in
the first place. And you're absolutely right. Just the other
week it was the eleven hundredth anniversary of his coronation.
There were wonderful celebrations in Kingston. Hundreds of people gathered.
There was even the naming of a train in Athol
(04:00):
stand's honor. So it's fantastic to think of a train
going down the National rail network.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Something for poets to write about now, exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Something for poets to write about now. So it was
a fantastic occasion. They even brewed a special Athelstan beer
for the day as well. And we're gearing up now
for in two years time the eleven hundred sorry anniversary
of England's birth in twenty twenty seven, So that should
be a momentous anniversary for us to prepare for.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I want to ask you, I feel like, from an
outsider's perspective, the year that gets all the credit is
ten sixty six. And even in terms of early medieval kings,
rather Alfred the Great and ethel Read the Unready seemed
to be more names that lay people might know. Why
do you think that ethel Stan isn't really in the
public consciousness very much?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, it's a really good question. I think poor old
Athelstan didn't have very good pr basically at his court.
His grandfather, Alfred the Great, just as you say, Dana,
was much more famous, and Alfred was fortunate in that
he had a contemporary biographer, a Welsh cleric named who
was writing a biographical account of his life. He was
employed by Alfred to paint a good picture of Alfred,
(05:07):
and that survived, and that cemented the good reputation that
Alfred had. Now, if Athelstan ever had such a person,
you know, we don't have the text that survive.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The poet wasn't good enough.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
The poet wasn't good enough. You know. It's a relatively
short poem when compared to the text of Assa. So
I think Athelstein has suffered in that sense, definitely in
historiographical terms. And the phenomenon of ten sixty six that
you mentioned is really interesting to me. I mean, I
did wonder a bit when writing the book, you know,
does it say something about the sort of self deprecating
attitude of the Brits that we sort of think about
our history as beginning with a big defeat rather than
(05:40):
this formation of the English Kingdom in the first place.
It's quite interesting that that's what we think about, and
that's where history kind of begins for us. I think
he's a bit of a victim of historiography in various ways.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
But after Athelstan dies, England doesn't stay united, right.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yes, And this is a big aspect of Atholestan's reign.
So seventy brings it all together for the first time,
and we can only imagine the challenges that would have
confronted him after he'd done this for the first time.
Lots of people who would have tried to overthrow him.
They would have been resentful of the authority and the
power that he achieved. We know this because in nine
three seven, for example, there was the famous Battle of Brunnenburg,
(06:17):
where a Viking coalition came together and tried to overthrow him.
And there's been all sorts of debates about where that
battle took place, but a major encounter in his reign.
And then, yes, only a couple of years later, he
dies in nine three nine. We don't know anything about
the circumstances in which he died. And then the Kingdom
of the English that he had built it sort of fragments.
A Viking named Olaf Gudfredson comes over from Dublin and
(06:40):
he's able to take control in York once more. So
York is ceded to Viking authority once again in nine
and three nine. So yes, it breaks down, and I
think it speaks to I guess just how successful he
had been as an individual. It just shows that so
much rested on his shoulders. He must have been, I think,
a very ruthless person, a very able politician to do
(07:01):
all these things, and certainly in martial terms, very very powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
But you know, what makes a good king is being
a good king for the moment. We had a conversation
with our friend, the brilliant historian Dan Jones about Henry
the Fifth, and he made the point that what made
Henry the fifth such an excellent king as he was
the right king for the time during which he lived.
And I think we can probably say the same thing
about Ethelstan.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, it's another really good point. I mean, I think
that if we think about his lineage, the way in
which he had been brought up, he would have seen
the example of his grandfather Alfred the Great, whose reign
was beset by Viking raids. It was actually Alfred who
recognized that in the face of these external attacks of Vikings,
it was really important that the English kingdoms, as much
as possible, were internally joined together, if you like. So,
(07:48):
under Alfred we get something called the Kingdom of the
Anglo Saxons, which is adjoining together of Wessex and mercy
a broadly speaking, and also under Alfred we get the
idea of the English coming through in various texts. Alfred
begins to talk about what the English people are and
he uses the Old English word angel kuhn to describe this.
So I think that Ethelstan, sorry, is really taking these
(08:08):
ideas that have been formed and were nascent in Alfred's
court and drives them forward. So he's absolutely a man
of the moment. He probably saw the merits in that
in warding off future Viking attacks.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I hope I'm not mixing up his early medieval figures
with similar names. But was it Alfred the Great who
was able to marry his daughter ethel Flood diplomatically and
sort of unite kingdoms?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Exactly right?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yes, Do we know if ethel Stan was able to
conquer territory diplomatically or do we assume it was more
through military force.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think it's probably a mix, is the answer. So
going back to your points by ethel Flaggs, I mean,
she is a fascinating character in her own right. It's
very unusual in the early medieval period that the women
are given prominence in our sources, and she does we
have a whole set of animals.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
She's a personal favorite.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean she's such an interesting character.
She's deserving of a biography in her own right. And
Tom Holland has written a biography of Ethel Flood. She's
a fascinating, fascinating person, daughter of Alfred and sent to
Mercier and is able to join Wessex and Mercy together
or help in that process. And we think that actually
Adelestan was sent to her court as a child to
(09:20):
be brought up there, so she would have been a
very important example for Athelstan of you know, what it
was to be successful and strong leader. And I think Adelestan,
you know, he definitely would have succeeded or been successful
by combining both negotiation and political alliances that he was
making in negotiated terms, but also with Marshall's skill. I
think it would have been both of those things that
would have enabled his success.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Do we know if he had any sort of legacy
on the continent in Europe at the time or was
he more of a domestic ruler.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, I mean this is another extraordinary aspect of his reign.
So as I mentioned, he becomes king in the first place,
in quite difficult circumstances, creates England very quickly in ninety seven,
and connections between English kingdoms or other and Europe have
been long standing by these points, but we've never before
had a monarch who has a kind of concerted foreign policy.
And it becomes very clear that Athelstan does. His father,
(10:12):
who was a man called Edward the Elder, actually married
three times in total, and that meant that Athelstan had
quite a large number of half brothers and half sisters.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Dangerous when you're trying to consolidate power.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Very dangerous. Yeah, it was dangerous to Atholstan, and there
are indications that some of his half brothers posed a
threat to his rulin and in fact, at the beginning
we think he shared rule with a half brother called Elfweyarde.
But one of the things he does strategically is he
seems to arrange a number of key marriage alliances between
some of his half sisters and contemporary rulers in Europe.
So places like West Frankier, East Frankier and Bergen. He
(10:48):
marries these sisters into these royal houses and he sets
himself up has been a key player on the European
stage as well.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You mentioned before that sort of in contrast to Alfred
the Great, there was no survive contemporary biography of Ethelstan,
and so as a historian, how do you approach your research.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it's one of the I guess frustrations but also
the joys in a way of doing this kind of
work that there are so many gaps in our records
that you sort of have to be quite imaginative and
trying to overcome those gaps, you know, and trying to
understand how you can piece together the life of an
early medieval monarch like cattle Stan. I mean a big
challenge when sitting down to write a biography of Athelstan
is that you can't even do it chronologically because there
(11:29):
are just so many gaps in our records, so you
have to do it thematically. But actually, one thing that
we're very fortunate about with Athlestan is that we have
a whole set of contemporary royal documents, so land grants
known as royal diplomas that he was making, and a
set of law codes, and in fact a whole set
of very interesting coins, thousands of coins in his name,
which means that we can recreated a lot about his
(11:50):
royal ambition, his royal policies. These documents take us right
to the center of the royal assembly, you know, all
the things that are going on at the center of politics.
So really that's the place to go on, I think
when we're thinking about Athelstan, we also have an early
twelfth century text written by one of the greatest Anglo
Norman historians, a man called William of Malmsbury, who includes
probably the longest narrative account of Rattlestan's life. And the
(12:13):
problem is that because of the sort of two hundred
year gap between when William was writing and when Athelstan live,
we don't always know just how much we can trust
what William was saying and where was he getting his
information from. So again you have to be a bit
cautious when using those details. But we can make sort
of cautious progress when looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
His text, and because you're basing it sort of on
these sources, these legal documents, these coins. You mentioned that
by necessity you imagine that Ethelstan was quite a ruthless person.
What else have you been able to glean about his character?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, well, if you're thinking about the basics of what
did he look like, what did he like to eat?
You know, what kind of person was he? I mean,
we simply don't know. We just don't have those details
from us surviving contemporary sources. We do have an image
of him in a manuscript, an early time century manuscript
in Cambridge in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College.
It's an extraordinary image of him with his head bowed
(13:07):
looking at a manuscript in front of Saint Cuthbert. We
don't know whether he's giving it to Saint Cuthbert or
he's trying to show that someone who's in favor of
Saint Cuthbert or a learned king. What's the exact message here?
And one of the ways in which it's very interesting
is that it's the earliest surviving portrait of any English monarch.
But does it show the real Athelstan We just don't know.
But another aspect to Ethelestan that's really really important is
(13:27):
that he was a keen patron and sponsor of learning
too of religion, and there's lots of evidence to the
fact that he was encouraging scholars from across Europe to
come to this court and to exchange ideas and favored
progress and learning in various forms.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
What do you think Ethelstan's influence today is, because obviously
the Kingdom of England didn't stay united, it fell apart
after his death, it comes back together again. But do
you think there's a line we can draw from Ethelstan
too today?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think it's very hard. Sometimes I'm very warey of
sort of rowing a line from so far back to
directly to today. But for me, I mean Atholestan is
England's founding father. That's really very important. And yes things
broke down when he died, but he was the kind
of architect of it all, if you see what I mean.
He was the person who had the idea that the
blueprint for it and made it a vague reality in
(14:18):
the early tenth century, and certainly during his reign it
was a reality to varying degrees. And you know, it's
not like he managed to create this one, you know,
homogeneous place overnight. That would have been different amounts of
people buying into it depending on where they lived, and
all sorts of differences of belief and language and all
sorts of things. But I think in terms of the
blueprint and the architecture of what England could be Athelstan
(14:38):
really should be thought of as our founding figure.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
When did you first become interested in Ethelstan?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Actually as an undergraduate student twenty odd years ago. I mean,
I remember going up to study history and one of
the first essays I did was on Athelstan. I was
only dimly aware of his name at that point, and
there was no modern biography of him then. Now I
was amazed that when I read about it him all
these achievements, all these things that he'd done, and I
hadn't known about him. Having grown up in the UK
through the UK schooling system, I just hadn't found out
(15:06):
about him. So that was when I first found out
about Applestan and became fascinated by him ever since.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
What made you decide at this point to write the biography.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I've worked on various aspects of Fatholstan's reign over the
years academically, and I really have a close attachment to
his royal documents as diplomas that we mentioned earlier. They're
so difficult in terms of the way that they're written.
So they're written in very florid and learned Latin by
a royal scribe is known by the title Appolestan a.
And these documents emerge just at the moment that he
(15:44):
brings England together for the first time in nine two seven.
So in the wake of that political achievement, it's very
clear that he's deploying this royal scribe to try and
celebrate in literary terms what he's done in political terms.
And it seemed to me that these documents were unlike
anything else else from the early medieval period. There's nothing
like them before and nothing like them that comes afterwards.
(16:04):
And so I became fascinated by the style of Latin,
the rhyme, the alliteration, the chiasmus, the use of new
words that he invents. You know, how did this person
do it? It seemed to me he was a genius. Actually,
so for me, the way in was through these royal documents,
because they were so taking us right to the heart
of the Royal Assembly. And you know, you can imagine
Attlestan at the end of the Royal diplomas. There are
these long lists of witnesses, people who were present at
(16:26):
the meeting of the Royal Assembly where these documents would
have been read out, and you can imagine the effect
it would have had to hear this incredible Latin read
out by the King or one of his advisors to
those assembled, and the witness list they contained names of
people from all over the English Kingdom for the first time,
so not just people from Wessex and Mercia, but we
get these wonderful you know, these wacky old Norse names
from Northumbria, Welsh kings, Scottish kings that are all there.
(16:49):
He's even able to wield a degree of authority over
these British kings as well, and they all would have
heard this amazing Latin. So that was the way in
for me. I love these documents.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It's a very cinematic scene too, what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
These gatherings would have been like in reality. At the
end of these diplomas, we have some seventy to eighteen
names listed. If you imagine that all of these people
had their own retinues traveling with them across Britain, there's
probably four or five hundred people present at these occasions.
I mean, they must have been extraordinary gatherings. They moved around,
mainly in the southwest in Wessex, and yes, how did
they work. I mean, just looking at the witnesses, they
(17:23):
sort of suggest to you a degree of sort of
democracy is obviously not the right word, but that kind
of thing, a degree of discussion and politics going on.
But of course Applestan had the last word. He was
the person in charge of all of this. But yeah,
they really bring to life, you know, the way in
which these early English kingdoms were governed.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Did Ethelstan have any direct errors?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
So one of the very remarkable features about Athelestan's reign
is that he didn't marry. There's no record of him
marrying during his lifetime from contemporary sources, and we only
have one reference to a potential daughter, but we think
it's an erroneous reference from a late text from me
ly they just got it wrong because the person names
that's the same name as one of his sisters. We
think the early author just mistook a sister for a daughter.
(18:05):
So he didn't have any direct heirs. So when he
dies in ninetenty nine, the throne passes to Tarf brother Edmund,
and one theory, which is written by the early twelfth
century author William of Malmesbury, is that he deliberately didn't
married because it would have caused more complexity in the
succession that if he'd produced his own heirs, there could
have been more challenges to who succeeded afterwards, So that's
one theory.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Was there not sort of an established notion that the
child of the current heir would become the next king.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So there was no strict rule of primogeniture at this point.
There was a broad understanding that somebody of royal blood
would succeed, and the old English term that sources use
for that is someone who is an atheling, so someone
who was literally thrown worthy. But the reality was that
when a king died, you know, everything was up for grabs,
and it depended on all sorts of things like you know,
military power, status, but also who had the backing of
(18:56):
the Royal Assembly at that moment, so it was very
much up for grabs. Son had experienced that himself, as
I mentioned at the beginning, when his half brother Alfreard
seems to have ruled alongside him at least for a
small amount of time.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's fascinating to me because in a modern sense, I
think we have this very modern idea of legacy in
you know, wanting to pass on your legacy to a child.
Where Ethelstan was so driven to unite these kingdoms under
one rule, and yet he didn't really abide by that
contemporary notion that he would pass it on to his
own dynasty.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, it's a good point and it stands a little
bit in contrast with if I think about his grandfather Alfred.
Remarkable feature of Alpha's ren is that we have his
will surviving, so we actually have what he wrote down
what he wanted to happen after he died. It doesn't
say in explicit terms to whom he wanted the throne
to pass, but he's very clear in saying that Edward,
his son and Athelstan's father, is to receive the majority
(19:49):
of estates in Wessex, in the heart of Wessex, and
it looks very clear that he was therefore being designated
the official successor to Alfred. And we just don't have
that kind of detail from Athelstan's rehn. And again it
could be in accidents of survival of our sources, but
we have no indication that he was, you know, laying
the foundations for someone else. One thing to say is
that Edmund Ishard brother does seem to succeed without any
(20:09):
real issues, So maybe it had been agreed, just wasn't
written down and actually it was quite a smooth transition
in power in Wessex. At least.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Forgive me if this makes no sense. But because there
are so many gaps in the story, I wonder for
you as a historian, is there like a holy grail
text that you would be desperate to find that you
think would be able to fill in the gaps of
ethel Stand's life. Is there sort of one text that
has been talked around They're like a missing piece.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
One of the joies of doing early medical histories is
actually that new things appear all the time in various ways.
And in fact, as I was writing the book, a
bag of coins, some of which were in Athelstan's name,
were found in Rome, and you know, it's terribly exciting
to wonder what these might say about Athelstan or those
traveling in the early tenth century to Rome. And the
same with texts. Even actually that sometimes in archival work
(20:59):
peace people find new copies of diplomas is a very
regular thing, or they find new copies of texts in
various ways, either texts that were written in the early
tenth century or copies of those texts which you know
that people haven't realized in the archives quite what they
have in front of them, so it's really exciting and
actually one of the reasons I love working in this
area is that there's always a chance for new material
to be found. I guess one thing I would really
wish for with Cathlestan specifically is we have you know,
(21:22):
the main contemporary narrative text is something called the Anglo
Saxon Chronicle. Survives in a number of principal manuscript versions,
and unfortunately for athlestands right in it, it feels relatively silent,
apart from a wonderful poem that it inserts in the
year nine three seven to commemorate the Battle of Brunanberg.
If I had a wish, it would be to discover
a manuscript that had more detail about Athelstan.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I will say, seeing physical artifacts from those times is
so striking to me. I was in Oxford last summer
saw the Alfred Jewel at the Ashmolean Museum, and to me,
that was sort of the moment. I had never really
been very interested in early medieval history. It sort of
felt very abstract me. But when you can see something tangible,
I think it really makes it come to life.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That's a wonderful object that takes us to the heart
of what's going on in the eight eighties when Alfred
is on the throne, and it's a moment when the
Vikings have left. He's managed to get rid of the
Vikings for the first time, that he's got a period
of peace. And one of the effects of the Viking raids,
we think learning and culture suffered across English kingdoms, and
Alfred put in place a program of revival, and one
of the things he sends out is an astyl, a
(22:25):
sort of pointer to help with reading texts, and the
Alpha Jewel seems to be the end of one of
those things. And there's a very moving in scripture and
it's saying Alfred ordered me to be made. Putting it
in the first person, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing.
So I can quite understand why that brought it to
life for you.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Well, I also just want to say, your book, The
First King of England, really does bring this period of
history to life for me too, and I think we'll
do the same for all of us who, unfortunately I
add a less than stellar Latin education and can't appreciate
the poetry of the primary sources.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Thank you so much, Jane. That's really kind of you.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And before I let you go, can you give us
a little preview. I imagine you're going to be involved in
the anniversary celebrations in twenty twenty seven, but can you
give us a little bit of a preview of things
that we might be looking forward to.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We're just coming together as a small group of us
just thinking about, you know, what could be done, what's
the best way to commemorate Athelstein and think about that
very very important anniversary. Various people from across the country
have been in touch with us saying that they're thinking
along similar terms. I know there's a big group of
people up in the Northwest in Cumbria near aimon Bridge
where it all happened in ninety seven. They're thinking about
(23:31):
various things that they could do. Hopefully we'll be putting
up a website soon actually with where we're trying to
bring together details about what's going on and trying to
bring together ideas as well, So stay tuned for that website.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Thank you so much. Professor Woodman is shedding light on Ethelstan,
the first King of England in his book of that name.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Thank you, Dinnan. Thanks for having Me.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild
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My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com