November 26, 2024 • 30 mins
At the end of the 10th century, King Eadwig was locked in a bitter rivalry with Abbot Dunstan. Their feud would eventually lead to exile, a broken marriage, a split kingdom, and a rumor that has persisted to this day.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener discretion advised. In the
year nine hundred and fifty five, there was a new
monarch on the throne of Wessex. Edwig, the fourteen year
old son of the previous king, was the new king.
(00:24):
After young Edwig went through his official anointing and installation
as King of the Anglo Saxons, the Wessex nobility celebrated
their new ruler with a feast, But as the guests
gathered around the table, they noticed an important person missing,
the teenage King Edwig himself, with the guest of honor
(00:48):
nowhere to be found, the archbishop sent two high up
clergy members, Abbot Dunstan and Bishop Quinnessier to the king's
royal apartments to see if he might be there. The
two men barged in to find a shocking sight. The
royal crown tossed to the side on the floor and
(01:10):
the young king himself in the middle of a threesome.
As one account put it, quote, he was disporting himself
between two women as though they were wallowing in some
revolting pigsty end quote horrified, Abbott Dunstan quote told off
(01:31):
the two women and tried to convince Edwig to come
to his feast, but the king refused. Dunstan had to
quote put out his hand and physically quote remove him
from the couch where he had been laying, quote parted
from his women only by force. One of the women
(01:53):
was the young king's fiance, Alphabou, but scandalously, the other
woman was Alphabou's mother. The discovery of the threesome would
be humiliating for Edwig. He had been caught and exposed
for abandoning his royal duties for an incestuous affair, but
(02:16):
did it actually happen. Given the outrageousness of the tale,
many historians suggest that it might have been an attempt
to slander Edwig's reputation. After all, accounts of Edwigs's threesome
only appear in narratives of the life of Abbot Dunstan,
the man who heroically stepped in to stop the debauchery
(02:39):
and returned the king to his officially sanctioned activities. These
biographies have a notably pro Dunstan slant and a tendency
to exaggerate. Alongside the story of Edwigs's alleged threesome is
a tale of Dunstan slaying the devil twice and reorienting
(03:00):
an entire church with only his shoulder, and Dunstan had
a good motive to lie about the new king. Edwig
and Dunstan were bitter enemies, and the threesome incident was
just one event in a decades long rivalry which spanned
(03:20):
multiple kings, sent Dunstan into exile and ultimately destroyed a marriage.
Turns out, salacious gossip about the sex lives of people
in power is not a modern invention. I'm Dana Schwartz
and this is Noble Blood Abbott. Dunstan's beef with Edwig
(03:44):
started long before young Edwig took the throne. Dunstan was
born in nine hundred and nine from humble origins. He
would eventually rise through the religious ranks to become the
advisor to seven kings and eventually the abbot of Glastonbury,
but it was a politically tumultuous time. Most kings spent
(04:07):
three or four years on the throne, with the threat
of assassination or replacement always lurking. Politically savvy operators like
Dunstan often had targets on their backs. Dunstan's drama with
the royal family started two kings before Edwig with Athelston
(04:27):
Edwiggs Dad's half brother, who I suppose as edwigs half uncle.
According to one of Dunstan's biographies, Athelston's courtiers were jealous
that Dunstan was the king's favorite, so they spread a
rumor about Dunstan that he was a heathen who took
part in magic rights. Believing the gossip, Ethelstan banished Dunstan
(04:52):
and his courtiers beat him up and left him for
dead in a duck pond, which is an adorable detail. Somehow,
Dunstan survived, and Ethelstan eventually welcomed him back into his
court and apologized for the misunderstanding. When Athelston died, he
(05:12):
was replaced with his half brother Edmund, Edwig's dad, who
sent Dunstan into exile yet again after his courtiers spread
yet another vicious rumor, but Edmund allegedly re admitted Dunstan.
After he was hunting near Cheddar Gorge. While chasing a stag,
(05:34):
Edmund came dangerously close to falling off the side of
the cliff before Dunstan saved him. If you couldn't tell
from Dunstan's heroic role in that story, it comes from
one of Dunstan's hagiographic biographies. But anyway, after Edmund's death,
he was succeeded by his brother Edred, and I genuinely
(05:57):
apologized for these names. Dunstan had a relatively drama free
stint in Edridge Court, with a plumb political position as
one of the king's most trusted advisers. Edred even put
Dunstan in charge of a good amount of his royal
treasure and authorized him to make royal charters, which was
(06:18):
a rare honor for a clergyman. But Dunstan's secure spot
in the royal court wouldn't last loan. Edred died in
nine hundred and fifty five at just thirty years old.
Now Edwig, Edmund's son and Edred's nephew, arrived on the
(06:39):
scene and immediately began to shake things up, much to
Dunstan's chagrin. At Edred's deathbed, Dunstan was the only royal
counselor that didn't render an account of the royal treasure
he was put in charge of, which raised young Edwigs's suspicions.
Edwig was incensed that his uncle's will left him nothing,
(07:04):
instead passing along most of the fortune to Edwig's mother.
Edwig and his followers suspected that Dunstan was laundering Edwigs's
rightful fortune through his mother to then give to Edwigs's
brother Edgar, so that Edgar could take over the throne instead.
It's a little bit complicated, but the point is Edwig
(07:28):
was convinced that Dunstan was screwing him over. Edwig rejected
the stipulations of the will and took most of the
money that was allocated to his mother for himself. Edwig
defied his late uncle's will yet again by burying him
in the Old Minister in Winchester instead of a reformed
(07:50):
Benedictine monastery such as Glastonbury, like his uncle had wanted.
Edwig was not as strict of a Benedictine as his
uncle Edward Rid had been, and it's likely Edwig didn't
want his late uncle's tomb to galvanize his Benedictine supporters,
a number which included Dunstan. To add insult to injury,
(08:14):
Edwig promoted his friends to high up positions in court
and completely neglected the Old Guard, the Old Guard which
included men like Dunstan. But the most flagrantly controversial aspect
of Edwig's rule, according to Dunstan, was Edwig's marriage. In
(08:36):
nine hundred and fifty six, Edwig married a woman named Alfievu,
who was a member of the highest Wessex nobility. Dunstan
had a long standing history himself with Alfhivu. Her family's
land was held in the same area of Wessex as
Dunstan's estate, and it's possible and likely that Dunstan had
(08:59):
an establish rivalry with Alfivu's family. More pertinently, that marriage
could have angered Dunstan because it put Edwig at a
political advantage. Teaming up with Alphievu's powerful family shored up
Edwig's rule against his mother, the archbishop, and Dunstan, who
(09:19):
were all still jocking to put Edwig's brother Edgar in power.
If Edwig and Alfivu had a son, that son could
prevent Edgar from ever ascending the throne. The warding Dunstan
and his Cohort's plans, Edwig had just one problem. He
(09:39):
might have been related to Alfivou, which flouted the laws
of consanguinity. In the tenth century, consanguinity happened if you
married someone within the fourth degree of kinship, meaning you
shared a common great great grandparent. It's unclear exactly how
(10:01):
the two might have been related, since Alfievu's ancestry has
not been perfectly recorded, or if it ever was, that
record is long since gone, but historians have located two
different great great grandfathers that they might have shared. Even
though Edwig and Alfaevu knew they might be related, the
(10:21):
political opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, it
was fairly common for couples, particularly noble or royal couples
at this time, to break consanguinity laws, and the Church
had a precedent for happily looking the other way, and
lo and behold, the Church allowed the couple to wed
(10:43):
in nine hundred and fifty six, around the time Edwig
rose to power. At the start of his rule, Edwig
had it all. He had the girl, and he had
the throne, and he immediately set about exercising his new powers,
is having an unprecedented ninety charters in his first year
(11:04):
as king. But with enemies like Dunstan nearby, Edwig couldn't
rest on his laurels. It was only a matter of
time before Dunstan would want the power to shift. Before
Dunstan could take any political revenge against him, Edwig sent
(11:25):
him into exile, keeping Dunstan from meddling in his activities.
But that wasn't just a preventative measure for Edwig. It
also allowed him to reallocate Dunstan's confiscated lands to his
own allies. The move was so controversial and damaging to
Dunstan's position in court that historian Nicholas Brooks calls Dunstan's
(11:50):
exile a coup. Dunstan left England at once for Ghent
sometime around February nine hundred and fifty six. Dune spent
his exile hanging out at the monastery of Saint Peter
in Ghent, where he was offered the protection of the
Count of Flanders. He spent most of his time there placidly,
(12:12):
studying against monastic customs and admiring the recently remodeled monastery,
not altogether a bad vacation. While Dunstan was bidding his
time in Ghent, Edwig was struggling to maintain his hard
won political power, even when his main Archnemesies was far
(12:32):
away from court. By autumn nine hundred and fifty seven,
just a year after he rose to the throne, Edwig's
political power began to crumble. That summer, the kingdom was
divided up between Edwig in the south and his brother
Edgar in the north, with the River Thames forming the boundary.
(12:55):
It's unclear exactly why this happened. Some think was in
response to the vast number of charters Edwig was issuing
during the first year of his reign, most of which
reallocated land between lay people, but there's no clear reason
why that would have upset the court or the church.
(13:15):
Others think that the division was because Edwig ruled incompetently,
alienating his northern territory. Dunstan certainly thought so. According to
pro Dunstan sources, Edwig's ruling territory was cut in half
because quote King Edwig totally abandoned by the people north.
(13:35):
They despised him for his imprudent discharge of the power
entrusted to him. The wise and sensible he destroyed in
a spirit of idle hatred, replacing them with ignoramuses like himself,
to whom he took a liking end quote. In any case,
the split of the kingdom represented a substantial decrease in
(13:57):
Edwig's power, and the election of him his brother Edgar
to rule over a substantial portion of his former territory
was a boon to Dunstan's plan to install Edgar on
the entire throne. Even better, for Dunstan, his allies got
him readmitted to court, and he returned to England. The
(14:20):
next step to destroying Edwigs's political power would be to
break up his marriage, which was still a powerful political alliance.
In nine hundred and fifty eight, the archbishop annulled their
marriage on grounds of consanguinity. There was some spiritual motive
(14:41):
for that decision. The archbishop took care to explicitly condemn
incest in his constitutions, an adaptation and compilation of older
papal texts, and as one historian put it, the Archbishop's
quote consideration of appropriate marriages, written perhaps a decade before
(15:01):
ethel Veu and Edwig's marriage, would bear a considerable amount
of weight against the young king and his royal authority
end quote. But the archbishop's separation of the married couple
now also had a political motive. The archbishop was a
key ally of Dunstan's, and with Edgar ruling all of
(15:24):
England north of the Thames, Dunstan and his allies felt
strong enough to move for Edwig's divorce. We know almost
nothing about what Edwig was up to after the division
of his kingdom and the breakup of his marriage, but
given the comparative dearth of charters he issued during that time,
(15:46):
he was likely languishing on his smaller throne. On October one,
nine hundred and fifty nine, Edwig died, just nineteen years old.
He was buried at the New Minster Winchester, a church
founded by his grandfather. In nine hundred and one, Edgar
(16:06):
was made king and England was consolidated once again under
Edgar's rule. As a close ally of Edgar's, Dunstan was
brought even further into the fold. The archbishop consecrated him
a bishop, and eventually Dunstan was appointed to the Sea.
He even officiated the coronation of King Edgar in nine
(16:30):
hundred and seventy three, a huge honour, but even that
resounding victory was not enough for Dunstan and his allies.
Even though Edwig was dead, Dunstan's ally's final act of
retribution was to destroy what was left of the teenage
king his reputation. Over the rest of the tenth century,
(16:57):
Edwig's reign was seen as a four year blip of
chaos and misrule. In contrast to the longer, more harmonious
reigns of his brother Edgar and his half uncle who
came before him, Edwig's time as king was brief and tumultuous.
As a young king, unprepared for the demands of the throne,
(17:19):
Edwig jockeyed for power against Dunstan, resulting in Dunstan's exile,
the annulment of Edwigs's marriage, and the splitting up of
the entire kingdom. While Edwigs's reputation had tarnished after his death,
Dunstan's star continued to rise. Dunstan acted as a kind
(17:39):
of proto prime minister of the kingdom, remaining a key
member of the court and an archbishop until his death
in nine hundred eighty eight. He was even more celebrated
after his death. Immediately after he died, Dunstan's name was
entered into liturgical calendars and litanies of the saints. A
(18:00):
series of hymns, mass sets, and benedictions were composed in
his name, so he was publicly commemorated in churches across
the country. It wasn't until this period, in the late
tenth century, after both Edwig and Dunstan had died, that
the story of Edwigs's notorious coronation threesome first appears in writing.
(18:25):
The author of this first account of the threesome, under
the pseudonym B, had been hanging out with Dunstan during
his Ghent exile from edwigs court. It's possible that he
had heard the story back then as court gossip about
this controversial new king, and had kept it in his
back pocket for the rest of the tenth century. After
(18:49):
he wrote his version of the story, it spread, appearing
in other narratives of Dunstan's life throughout the eleventh century.
The story certainly helped these pro Dunstan sources prove Dunstan's
moral worth. Unlike the licentious, scandalous young King Edwig, Dunstan
(19:11):
was a monk, and so he was assumed to be chased,
and his biographers highlighted his commitment to abstaining from sex
throughout their texts. Medieval writers considered this to be one
of Dunstan's greatest sacrifices, which only strengthened his spiritual worthiness.
In the story of Edwigs's threesome, Dunstan's comparative chastity makes
(19:36):
him the moral authority of the situation, even above the
king himself. After all, Dunstan had to physically break up
the threesome, put the crown back on Edwig's head, and
admonish the women involved the threesome. Also let these pro
Dunstan writers absolve him for his exile during Edwigs's reign.
(19:58):
One writer explicitly makes that connection by having Edwig's mother
in law tell Dunstan in the middle of the discovered threesome, quote,
if you are so bold as to drag the king
willy nilly from the room, I shall make sure you
always remember this day and me. In this context, Dunstan's
exile seems like petty revenge rather than canny political maneuvering.
(20:24):
Having his mother in law threatened Dunstan instead of Edwig
also has the added benefit of making Edwig seem like
a weak puppet under the thumb of the women in
his life, even further discrediting his rule. But it's strange
that such a salacious bombshell of a story only came
(20:46):
out after Edwig was long dead and his political threat
to Dunstan had already well been neutralized. Dunstan had already
decisively won the feud. He died a Venora raed saint.
There was no need to introduce a fictional story about
Edwig lest we forget skipping his own coronation to have
(21:08):
a threesome with his fiance and her mom, even if
it was just as a victory lap. His historian Katharine
Weygert suggests that the story also served a moral and
political purpose, not just the purpose of petty revenge. She
argues that the story functioned as a cautionary tale. Edwig
(21:32):
had thought it would be a good political strategy to
marry Alfelviu, a distant relative with key territory in the region. Certainly,
if the marriage had flown under the radar, they could
have had sons who would have ruled over England after
Edwig died. Even though this marriage was long over, it
(21:52):
still represented the biggest threat to the current regime, since,
given that the Church often ignored consanguinity, other rulers could
easily follow suit b The anonymous chronicler who introduced the
threesome story did so during the reign of Afelred the Second,
(22:13):
the son of Edgar, who would never have been able
to come to power if Edwigs's marriage had stood unchallenged
and he had had sons of his own. Afelred the
Second's rule was already under threat from constant norse raiding
from competing political factions, and a political rival could easily
follow Edwigs's playbook to challenge him. Because of those potential
(22:38):
challenges to the status quo, Weygart says, marriages like Edwiggs
quote had to be undermined on every possible level. Wyckart
emphasizes that the most effective strategy to scare potential rulers
from that kind of marriage that would consolidate their power
was to use sexual humiliation. This is most clearly true
(23:02):
for Edwig. This story made his union with Alfelvoux seem
like a perverse abandonment of his role as king, quite literally,
since he was abandoning his coronation feast. Not only was
Edwig engaging in incest by sleeping with his distant relative
and her mom simultaneously, he was also abandoning his own coronation,
(23:24):
ignoring kingly duties. The story also slanders his wife, which
discourages other women from seeking out similar marriages. Wykert points
out that B refers to Affelvou not as Edwig's wife,
but just as a woman that the king is sleeping with,
stripping her of her status. This move dishonors both Edwig
(23:49):
and Alflavou because quote, without the shield of authority from
their place in court culture. In these texts, Affelvou can
become a Jezebel with whom the weak and effeminate Edwig
feels compelled to fornicate. End quote. The story suggests that
Edwig and Alflevou's marriage was a moral threat to the
(24:13):
status quo, and the story destroyed both of their reputations
in perpetuity. Other tenth century writers would later make up
additional details about Edwig's love life to further discredit him.
Burforth of Ramsay accused him of quote leading a wicked
(24:33):
life and immoderate youth is accustomed to do by loving
another woman as if she were his own wife and
eloping with her, ignoring the sacred decrees of Christian law.
According to him, it wasn't until the archbishop at the
time Quote seized the woman and took her out of
the kingdom and warned the king with gentle words and
(24:54):
actions that he should constrain himself from wicked deeds, that
the sinful union would broken up. We don't know much
or anything about this alleged second marriage, but it suggests
that attacking Edwig's sexuality was a winning and continuous strategy
when it came to slandering him. We'll never know whether
(25:17):
those stories were true, and in all likelihood they were not,
but they represent a medieval pr triumph for Dunstan. While
Dunstan's biographers presented him as a virtuous hero after his death,
he was probably a very controversial figure during his life.
(25:38):
Even these pro Dunstan writers admit that he quote inspired
hatred and envy on a grand scale, as contemporary historian
Michael Lappage put it. After all, Dunstan was exiled three
times and even beaten and thrown into a duck pond
during Ethelston's reign. Similarly, returning to the story of edwigs
(26:02):
threesome in a more nuanced light suggests a more complex
view of Edwigs's rule beyond his youthful indiscretion, short time
on the throne, and bad reputation after his death. During
the first year of his reign, he represented a credible
threat to Dunstan's authority, even if young Edwig didn't have
(26:27):
the political know how to know how to retain the
upper hand. The story of edwigs threesome shows that medieval
politicians and clergy were willing to play dirty, creating a
salacious story that has stuck around for centuries. That's the
(26:52):
end of our story about Edwigs alleged threesome, but stick
around to hear a little bit more about Dunstan's epic
battles with the Devil. According to Dunstan's biographers, Dunstan was
(27:13):
not only breaking up threesums and getting thrown in duck ponds,
but also literally fighting with the devil. According to legend,
during his exile at Glastonbury back during Ethelston's rule, he
was sitting in a cell and doing some metalwork when
suddenly an old man came to his window and asked
(27:34):
Dunstan to make him a chalice. Dunstan accepted the man's request,
but as he was working, the old man began to
morph into a young boy and then a sexy woman.
Dunstan knew at that moment that this figure was the devil,
but he bided his time and continued to work on
(27:55):
his chalice. He laid his tongs in the fire until
they got scaled hot, then grabbed them, turned around, and
used them to suddenly grab the devil by the nose.
The devil squirmed and shrieked and ran out of the cell, screaming,
woe is me? What hath that bald devil done to me?
Look at me, a poor wretch, Look how he has
(28:17):
tortured me. People on the street heard the devil's cries
and approached Dunstan the following day, asking what happened. He
told them, quote, these are the tricks of the devils,
who try to trap us with their snares whenever they can.
But if we remain firm in the service of Christ,
(28:38):
we can easily defeat them with his help, and they
will flee from us in confusion. To be honest, if
that version of the story actually happened, it kind of
sounds like Dunstan just grabbed an old man's nose with
flaming hot tongs. But who knows Dunstan also encountered the
devil yet again, one time when he was praying alone.
(29:01):
This time, the devil disguised himself as a wolf, snarling
and baring his teeth, but Dunstan refused to acknowledge him,
instead just concentrating on his prayers. The devil then transformed
into a cute little fox, dancing about to try to
get Dunstan's attention. Dunstan said in response, quote, you are
(29:24):
revealing how you usually behave by your tricks. You flatter
the unwary so that you can devour them. Now get
out of here, wretch, since Christ, who crushed the lion
and the dragon with his heel, will overcome you by
his grace through me, whether you're a wolf or a fox.
Those stories, true or ahem not, became popular legends, spreading
(29:51):
throughout the medieval world. Yet another pr victory for our
friend Dunstan. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and
Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted
by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by
(30:14):
Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Melaney.
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke,
Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(30:38):
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener discretion advised. In the
year nine hundred and fifty five, there was a new
monarch on the throne of Wessex. Edwig, the fourteen year
old son of the previous king, was the new king.
(00:24):
After young Edwig went through his official anointing and installation
as King of the Anglo Saxons, the Wessex nobility celebrated
their new ruler with a feast, But as the guests
gathered around the table, they noticed an important person missing,
the teenage King Edwig himself, with the guest of honor
(00:48):
nowhere to be found, the archbishop sent two high up
clergy members, Abbot Dunstan and Bishop Quinnessier to the king's
royal apartments to see if he might be there. The
two men barged in to find a shocking sight. The
royal crown tossed to the side on the floor and
(01:10):
the young king himself in the middle of a threesome.
As one account put it, quote, he was disporting himself
between two women as though they were wallowing in some
revolting pigsty end quote horrified, Abbott Dunstan quote told off
(01:31):
the two women and tried to convince Edwig to come
to his feast, but the king refused. Dunstan had to
quote put out his hand and physically quote remove him
from the couch where he had been laying, quote parted
from his women only by force. One of the women
(01:53):
was the young king's fiance, Alphabou, but scandalously, the other
woman was Alphabou's mother. The discovery of the threesome would
be humiliating for Edwig. He had been caught and exposed
for abandoning his royal duties for an incestuous affair, but
(02:16):
did it actually happen. Given the outrageousness of the tale,
many historians suggest that it might have been an attempt
to slander Edwig's reputation. After all, accounts of Edwigs's threesome
only appear in narratives of the life of Abbot Dunstan,
the man who heroically stepped in to stop the debauchery
(02:39):
and returned the king to his officially sanctioned activities. These
biographies have a notably pro Dunstan slant and a tendency
to exaggerate. Alongside the story of Edwigs's alleged threesome is
a tale of Dunstan slaying the devil twice and reorienting
(03:00):
an entire church with only his shoulder, and Dunstan had
a good motive to lie about the new king. Edwig
and Dunstan were bitter enemies, and the threesome incident was
just one event in a decades long rivalry which spanned
(03:20):
multiple kings, sent Dunstan into exile and ultimately destroyed a marriage.
Turns out, salacious gossip about the sex lives of people
in power is not a modern invention. I'm Dana Schwartz
and this is Noble Blood Abbott. Dunstan's beef with Edwig
(03:44):
started long before young Edwig took the throne. Dunstan was
born in nine hundred and nine from humble origins. He
would eventually rise through the religious ranks to become the
advisor to seven kings and eventually the abbot of Glastonbury,
but it was a politically tumultuous time. Most kings spent
(04:07):
three or four years on the throne, with the threat
of assassination or replacement always lurking. Politically savvy operators like
Dunstan often had targets on their backs. Dunstan's drama with
the royal family started two kings before Edwig with Athelston
(04:27):
Edwiggs Dad's half brother, who I suppose as edwigs half uncle.
According to one of Dunstan's biographies, Athelston's courtiers were jealous
that Dunstan was the king's favorite, so they spread a
rumor about Dunstan that he was a heathen who took
part in magic rights. Believing the gossip, Ethelstan banished Dunstan
(04:52):
and his courtiers beat him up and left him for
dead in a duck pond, which is an adorable detail. Somehow,
Dunstan survived, and Ethelstan eventually welcomed him back into his
court and apologized for the misunderstanding. When Athelston died, he
(05:12):
was replaced with his half brother Edmund, Edwig's dad, who
sent Dunstan into exile yet again after his courtiers spread
yet another vicious rumor, but Edmund allegedly re admitted Dunstan.
After he was hunting near Cheddar Gorge. While chasing a stag,
(05:34):
Edmund came dangerously close to falling off the side of
the cliff before Dunstan saved him. If you couldn't tell
from Dunstan's heroic role in that story, it comes from
one of Dunstan's hagiographic biographies. But anyway, after Edmund's death,
he was succeeded by his brother Edred, and I genuinely
(05:57):
apologized for these names. Dunstan had a relatively drama free
stint in Edridge Court, with a plumb political position as
one of the king's most trusted advisers. Edred even put
Dunstan in charge of a good amount of his royal
treasure and authorized him to make royal charters, which was
(06:18):
a rare honor for a clergyman. But Dunstan's secure spot
in the royal court wouldn't last loan. Edred died in
nine hundred and fifty five at just thirty years old.
Now Edwig, Edmund's son and Edred's nephew, arrived on the
(06:39):
scene and immediately began to shake things up, much to
Dunstan's chagrin. At Edred's deathbed, Dunstan was the only royal
counselor that didn't render an account of the royal treasure
he was put in charge of, which raised young Edwigs's suspicions.
Edwig was incensed that his uncle's will left him nothing,
(07:04):
instead passing along most of the fortune to Edwig's mother.
Edwig and his followers suspected that Dunstan was laundering Edwigs's
rightful fortune through his mother to then give to Edwigs's
brother Edgar, so that Edgar could take over the throne instead.
It's a little bit complicated, but the point is Edwig
(07:28):
was convinced that Dunstan was screwing him over. Edwig rejected
the stipulations of the will and took most of the
money that was allocated to his mother for himself. Edwig
defied his late uncle's will yet again by burying him
in the Old Minister in Winchester instead of a reformed
(07:50):
Benedictine monastery such as Glastonbury, like his uncle had wanted.
Edwig was not as strict of a Benedictine as his
uncle Edward Rid had been, and it's likely Edwig didn't
want his late uncle's tomb to galvanize his Benedictine supporters,
a number which included Dunstan. To add insult to injury,
(08:14):
Edwig promoted his friends to high up positions in court
and completely neglected the Old Guard, the Old Guard which
included men like Dunstan. But the most flagrantly controversial aspect
of Edwig's rule, according to Dunstan, was Edwig's marriage. In
(08:36):
nine hundred and fifty six, Edwig married a woman named Alfievu,
who was a member of the highest Wessex nobility. Dunstan
had a long standing history himself with Alfhivu. Her family's
land was held in the same area of Wessex as
Dunstan's estate, and it's possible and likely that Dunstan had
(08:59):
an establish rivalry with Alfivu's family. More pertinently, that marriage
could have angered Dunstan because it put Edwig at a
political advantage. Teaming up with Alphievu's powerful family shored up
Edwig's rule against his mother, the archbishop, and Dunstan, who
(09:19):
were all still jocking to put Edwig's brother Edgar in power.
If Edwig and Alfivu had a son, that son could
prevent Edgar from ever ascending the throne. The warding Dunstan
and his Cohort's plans, Edwig had just one problem. He
(09:39):
might have been related to Alfivou, which flouted the laws
of consanguinity. In the tenth century, consanguinity happened if you
married someone within the fourth degree of kinship, meaning you
shared a common great great grandparent. It's unclear exactly how
(10:01):
the two might have been related, since Alfievu's ancestry has
not been perfectly recorded, or if it ever was, that
record is long since gone, but historians have located two
different great great grandfathers that they might have shared. Even
though Edwig and Alfaevu knew they might be related, the
(10:21):
political opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, it
was fairly common for couples, particularly noble or royal couples
at this time, to break consanguinity laws, and the Church
had a precedent for happily looking the other way, and
lo and behold, the Church allowed the couple to wed
(10:43):
in nine hundred and fifty six, around the time Edwig
rose to power. At the start of his rule, Edwig
had it all. He had the girl, and he had
the throne, and he immediately set about exercising his new powers,
is having an unprecedented ninety charters in his first year
(11:04):
as king. But with enemies like Dunstan nearby, Edwig couldn't
rest on his laurels. It was only a matter of
time before Dunstan would want the power to shift. Before
Dunstan could take any political revenge against him, Edwig sent
(11:25):
him into exile, keeping Dunstan from meddling in his activities.
But that wasn't just a preventative measure for Edwig. It
also allowed him to reallocate Dunstan's confiscated lands to his
own allies. The move was so controversial and damaging to
Dunstan's position in court that historian Nicholas Brooks calls Dunstan's
(11:50):
exile a coup. Dunstan left England at once for Ghent
sometime around February nine hundred and fifty six. Dune spent
his exile hanging out at the monastery of Saint Peter
in Ghent, where he was offered the protection of the
Count of Flanders. He spent most of his time there placidly,
(12:12):
studying against monastic customs and admiring the recently remodeled monastery,
not altogether a bad vacation. While Dunstan was bidding his
time in Ghent, Edwig was struggling to maintain his hard
won political power, even when his main Archnemesies was far
(12:32):
away from court. By autumn nine hundred and fifty seven,
just a year after he rose to the throne, Edwig's
political power began to crumble. That summer, the kingdom was
divided up between Edwig in the south and his brother
Edgar in the north, with the River Thames forming the boundary.
(12:55):
It's unclear exactly why this happened. Some think was in
response to the vast number of charters Edwig was issuing
during the first year of his reign, most of which
reallocated land between lay people, but there's no clear reason
why that would have upset the court or the church.
(13:15):
Others think that the division was because Edwig ruled incompetently,
alienating his northern territory. Dunstan certainly thought so. According to
pro Dunstan sources, Edwig's ruling territory was cut in half
because quote King Edwig totally abandoned by the people north.
(13:35):
They despised him for his imprudent discharge of the power
entrusted to him. The wise and sensible he destroyed in
a spirit of idle hatred, replacing them with ignoramuses like himself,
to whom he took a liking end quote. In any case,
the split of the kingdom represented a substantial decrease in
(13:57):
Edwig's power, and the election of him his brother Edgar
to rule over a substantial portion of his former territory
was a boon to Dunstan's plan to install Edgar on
the entire throne. Even better, for Dunstan, his allies got
him readmitted to court, and he returned to England. The
(14:20):
next step to destroying Edwigs's political power would be to
break up his marriage, which was still a powerful political alliance.
In nine hundred and fifty eight, the archbishop annulled their
marriage on grounds of consanguinity. There was some spiritual motive
(14:41):
for that decision. The archbishop took care to explicitly condemn
incest in his constitutions, an adaptation and compilation of older
papal texts, and as one historian put it, the Archbishop's
quote consideration of appropriate marriages, written perhaps a decade before
(15:01):
ethel Veu and Edwig's marriage, would bear a considerable amount
of weight against the young king and his royal authority
end quote. But the archbishop's separation of the married couple
now also had a political motive. The archbishop was a
key ally of Dunstan's, and with Edgar ruling all of
(15:24):
England north of the Thames, Dunstan and his allies felt
strong enough to move for Edwig's divorce. We know almost
nothing about what Edwig was up to after the division
of his kingdom and the breakup of his marriage, but
given the comparative dearth of charters he issued during that time,
(15:46):
he was likely languishing on his smaller throne. On October one,
nine hundred and fifty nine, Edwig died, just nineteen years old.
He was buried at the New Minster Winchester, a church
founded by his grandfather. In nine hundred and one, Edgar
(16:06):
was made king and England was consolidated once again under
Edgar's rule. As a close ally of Edgar's, Dunstan was
brought even further into the fold. The archbishop consecrated him
a bishop, and eventually Dunstan was appointed to the Sea.
He even officiated the coronation of King Edgar in nine
(16:30):
hundred and seventy three, a huge honour, but even that
resounding victory was not enough for Dunstan and his allies.
Even though Edwig was dead, Dunstan's ally's final act of
retribution was to destroy what was left of the teenage
king his reputation. Over the rest of the tenth century,
(16:57):
Edwig's reign was seen as a four year blip of
chaos and misrule. In contrast to the longer, more harmonious
reigns of his brother Edgar and his half uncle who
came before him, Edwig's time as king was brief and tumultuous.
As a young king, unprepared for the demands of the throne,
(17:19):
Edwig jockeyed for power against Dunstan, resulting in Dunstan's exile,
the annulment of Edwigs's marriage, and the splitting up of
the entire kingdom. While Edwigs's reputation had tarnished after his death,
Dunstan's star continued to rise. Dunstan acted as a kind
(17:39):
of proto prime minister of the kingdom, remaining a key
member of the court and an archbishop until his death
in nine hundred eighty eight. He was even more celebrated
after his death. Immediately after he died, Dunstan's name was
entered into liturgical calendars and litanies of the saints. A
(18:00):
series of hymns, mass sets, and benedictions were composed in
his name, so he was publicly commemorated in churches across
the country. It wasn't until this period, in the late
tenth century, after both Edwig and Dunstan had died, that
the story of Edwigs's notorious coronation threesome first appears in writing.
(18:25):
The author of this first account of the threesome, under
the pseudonym B, had been hanging out with Dunstan during
his Ghent exile from edwigs court. It's possible that he
had heard the story back then as court gossip about
this controversial new king, and had kept it in his
back pocket for the rest of the tenth century. After
(18:49):
he wrote his version of the story, it spread, appearing
in other narratives of Dunstan's life throughout the eleventh century.
The story certainly helped these pro Dunstan sources prove Dunstan's
moral worth. Unlike the licentious, scandalous young King Edwig, Dunstan
(19:11):
was a monk, and so he was assumed to be chased,
and his biographers highlighted his commitment to abstaining from sex
throughout their texts. Medieval writers considered this to be one
of Dunstan's greatest sacrifices, which only strengthened his spiritual worthiness.
In the story of Edwigs's threesome, Dunstan's comparative chastity makes
(19:36):
him the moral authority of the situation, even above the
king himself. After all, Dunstan had to physically break up
the threesome, put the crown back on Edwig's head, and
admonish the women involved the threesome. Also let these pro
Dunstan writers absolve him for his exile during Edwigs's reign.
(19:58):
One writer explicitly makes that connection by having Edwig's mother
in law tell Dunstan in the middle of the discovered threesome, quote,
if you are so bold as to drag the king
willy nilly from the room, I shall make sure you
always remember this day and me. In this context, Dunstan's
exile seems like petty revenge rather than canny political maneuvering.
(20:24):
Having his mother in law threatened Dunstan instead of Edwig
also has the added benefit of making Edwig seem like
a weak puppet under the thumb of the women in
his life, even further discrediting his rule. But it's strange
that such a salacious bombshell of a story only came
(20:46):
out after Edwig was long dead and his political threat
to Dunstan had already well been neutralized. Dunstan had already
decisively won the feud. He died a Venora raed saint.
There was no need to introduce a fictional story about
Edwig lest we forget skipping his own coronation to have
(21:08):
a threesome with his fiance and her mom, even if
it was just as a victory lap. His historian Katharine
Weygert suggests that the story also served a moral and
political purpose, not just the purpose of petty revenge. She
argues that the story functioned as a cautionary tale. Edwig
(21:32):
had thought it would be a good political strategy to
marry Alfelviu, a distant relative with key territory in the region. Certainly,
if the marriage had flown under the radar, they could
have had sons who would have ruled over England after
Edwig died. Even though this marriage was long over, it
(21:52):
still represented the biggest threat to the current regime, since,
given that the Church often ignored consanguinity, other rulers could
easily follow suit b The anonymous chronicler who introduced the
threesome story did so during the reign of Afelred the Second,
(22:13):
the son of Edgar, who would never have been able
to come to power if Edwigs's marriage had stood unchallenged
and he had had sons of his own. Afelred the
Second's rule was already under threat from constant norse raiding
from competing political factions, and a political rival could easily
follow Edwigs's playbook to challenge him. Because of those potential
(22:38):
challenges to the status quo, Weygart says, marriages like Edwiggs
quote had to be undermined on every possible level. Wyckart
emphasizes that the most effective strategy to scare potential rulers
from that kind of marriage that would consolidate their power
was to use sexual humiliation. This is most clearly true
(23:02):
for Edwig. This story made his union with Alfelvoux seem
like a perverse abandonment of his role as king, quite literally,
since he was abandoning his coronation feast. Not only was
Edwig engaging in incest by sleeping with his distant relative
and her mom simultaneously, he was also abandoning his own coronation,
(23:24):
ignoring kingly duties. The story also slanders his wife, which
discourages other women from seeking out similar marriages. Wykert points
out that B refers to Affelvou not as Edwig's wife,
but just as a woman that the king is sleeping with,
stripping her of her status. This move dishonors both Edwig
(23:49):
and Alflavou because quote, without the shield of authority from
their place in court culture. In these texts, Affelvou can
become a Jezebel with whom the weak and effeminate Edwig
feels compelled to fornicate. End quote. The story suggests that
Edwig and Alflevou's marriage was a moral threat to the
(24:13):
status quo, and the story destroyed both of their reputations
in perpetuity. Other tenth century writers would later make up
additional details about Edwig's love life to further discredit him.
Burforth of Ramsay accused him of quote leading a wicked
(24:33):
life and immoderate youth is accustomed to do by loving
another woman as if she were his own wife and
eloping with her, ignoring the sacred decrees of Christian law.
According to him, it wasn't until the archbishop at the
time Quote seized the woman and took her out of
the kingdom and warned the king with gentle words and
(24:54):
actions that he should constrain himself from wicked deeds, that
the sinful union would broken up. We don't know much
or anything about this alleged second marriage, but it suggests
that attacking Edwig's sexuality was a winning and continuous strategy
when it came to slandering him. We'll never know whether
(25:17):
those stories were true, and in all likelihood they were not,
but they represent a medieval pr triumph for Dunstan. While
Dunstan's biographers presented him as a virtuous hero after his death,
he was probably a very controversial figure during his life.
(25:38):
Even these pro Dunstan writers admit that he quote inspired
hatred and envy on a grand scale, as contemporary historian
Michael Lappage put it. After all, Dunstan was exiled three
times and even beaten and thrown into a duck pond
during Ethelston's reign. Similarly, returning to the story of edwigs
(26:02):
threesome in a more nuanced light suggests a more complex
view of Edwigs's rule beyond his youthful indiscretion, short time
on the throne, and bad reputation after his death. During
the first year of his reign, he represented a credible
threat to Dunstan's authority, even if young Edwig didn't have
(26:27):
the political know how to know how to retain the
upper hand. The story of edwigs threesome shows that medieval
politicians and clergy were willing to play dirty, creating a
salacious story that has stuck around for centuries. That's the
(26:52):
end of our story about Edwigs alleged threesome, but stick
around to hear a little bit more about Dunstan's epic
battles with the Devil. According to Dunstan's biographers, Dunstan was
(27:13):
not only breaking up threesums and getting thrown in duck ponds,
but also literally fighting with the devil. According to legend,
during his exile at Glastonbury back during Ethelston's rule, he
was sitting in a cell and doing some metalwork when
suddenly an old man came to his window and asked
(27:34):
Dunstan to make him a chalice. Dunstan accepted the man's request,
but as he was working, the old man began to
morph into a young boy and then a sexy woman.
Dunstan knew at that moment that this figure was the devil,
but he bided his time and continued to work on
(27:55):
his chalice. He laid his tongs in the fire until
they got scaled hot, then grabbed them, turned around, and
used them to suddenly grab the devil by the nose.
The devil squirmed and shrieked and ran out of the cell, screaming,
woe is me? What hath that bald devil done to me?
Look at me, a poor wretch, Look how he has
(28:17):
tortured me. People on the street heard the devil's cries
and approached Dunstan the following day, asking what happened. He
told them, quote, these are the tricks of the devils,
who try to trap us with their snares whenever they can.
But if we remain firm in the service of Christ,
(28:38):
we can easily defeat them with his help, and they
will flee from us in confusion. To be honest, if
that version of the story actually happened, it kind of
sounds like Dunstan just grabbed an old man's nose with
flaming hot tongs. But who knows Dunstan also encountered the
devil yet again, one time when he was praying alone.
(29:01):
This time, the devil disguised himself as a wolf, snarling
and baring his teeth, but Dunstan refused to acknowledge him,
instead just concentrating on his prayers. The devil then transformed
into a cute little fox, dancing about to try to
get Dunstan's attention. Dunstan said in response, quote, you are
(29:24):
revealing how you usually behave by your tricks. You flatter
the unwary so that you can devour them. Now get
out of here, wretch, since Christ, who crushed the lion
and the dragon with his heel, will overcome you by
his grace through me, whether you're a wolf or a fox.
Those stories, true or ahem not, became popular legends, spreading
(29:51):
throughout the medieval world. Yet another pr victory for our
friend Dunstan. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and
Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted
by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by
(30:14):
Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Melaney.
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke,
Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(30:38):
to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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