Æthelstan, First King of England with David Woodman

On September 4, 925 – 1100 years to the day this episode is released – King Æthelstan was crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames. Æthelstan is most often talked about in the context of the famous Battle of Brunanburh, but maybe we should remember him instead as the first king of England. This week, Danièle speaks with David Woodman about Æthelstan’s life, his rule, and his attempt to unite the kingdoms of Britain.

You can join Danièle's class Calamity and Change: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Century at https://medievalstudies.thinkific.com/courses/calamity-and-change - use the coupon code backtoschool to save 15% 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred five of
the Medieval podcast. I'm your host Danielle Sebalski. On September fourth, nine,
twenty five, eleven hundred years to the day this episode

(00:24):
is released, King Athelstan was crowned at Kingston upon Thames.
Athelstan is most often talked about in the context of
the famous Battle of Brunnenburg, but maybe we should be
talking about him in other terms. Maybe we should recognize
him as my guest this week does as the first
King of England. This week I spoke with doctor David

(00:48):
Woodman about the life and legacy of Athelstan. David is
professor of History at Robinson College, Cambridge and the author
of Edward the Confessor The Sainted King, as well as
being the co editor of many other works, including Constructing
History Across the Norman Conquest Wooster circa ten fifty to
eleven fifty and writing Kingship and Power in Anglo Saxon England.

(01:12):
His new book is The First King of England, Athelstan
and the Birth of a Kingdom. Our conversation on Ethelstan's life,
his rule, and his attempt to unite the kingdoms of
Britain is coming up right after this. Well, thank you
David for joining us to talk about Ethelstan, who is

(01:34):
going to be more important than people have already imagined.
I'm sure you're going to sell this to us because
this is something you feel passionately about. So welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you very much having me.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Okay, so when we're talking about this particular king, what
period are we talking about? Can you situate us in
time and place?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, of course, so we're talking about the early tenth
century broadly speaking, So we don't know precisely when, but
we think that Athelstan was born in about the year
eight ninety four, so right at the end of the
ninth century, and he becomes king for the first time
in the year nine two to four, and he stays
on the throne right the way through to his death
in nine three nine, So broadly speaking, from the late

(02:12):
ninth century all the way through to the early tenth
century at a time when there's so much going on
politically in England and Britain more generally.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes, there are so many kingdoms and this is kind
of a big part of the story that you're going
to be talking about. So in the book, you start
with Alfred the Great. Should we start there? When we're
talking about ethel Stein's biography, should we start there? Let's
start there, of course, yeah, absolutely, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
So Alfred is Athelstan's grandfather, and Alfred the Great. He's
probably the most famous medieval king, and famous of course
for repelling the Viking attacks, ultimately being successful in winning
over the kingdom against the onslaught of Vikings which had
been plaguing England and Britain from about the mid eight
sixties in earnest onwards. So, so Alfred had a major

(02:57):
job during his time as king, and so Apostan as
he's born in the mid eight nineties is arriving amid
a scene of a real difficulty domestically, a kingdom that
is not only internally fragmented. And you mentioned there, Daniel,
that the political makeup of England is very complex. So
we have lots of independent kingdoms, places like Mercia in

(03:18):
the midlands, Wessex in the south and West East Anglia
in the eastern Northumbury in the north. But it's also
of course having to cope with the Viking onslaught and
the Vikings have taken over various parts of eastern and
northern England at this moment. So there's a settlement of
Vikings that has taken place as well.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
So when we talk about Alfred's kingdom starting there, which
kingdom is Alfred's?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, So Alfred had been King of the West Saxons initially,
so he acceeded in eight seventy one as King of
the West Saxons and in the eight eighties he seems
to have joined together both Wessex and Mercy into one
and we get this reference to a new polity, a
new kingdom of the Anglo Saxons, so something that is
broader than just Wessex itself, and it looks a bit

(04:04):
like Alfred and as advisors have constructed this idea of
a new kingdom in the face of the external Viking attack,
they recognize that they desperately need to be joined together
internally in order to be successful against this external threat.
So Alfred very very interesting for bringing together this new
vision of what the kingdom could be basically.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, and it gets bigger from there. So when we're
talking about Athelston growing up, how much do you think
he would have seen of Alfred's kingship. Do you think
that would have had an impact on the way that
he was envisioning kingship in the future.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, definitely. I think there would have been a large
impact from his grandfather's reign in various respects, both militarily
in ways that we will see. Alfred was also renowned
for sponsoring an educational reform as part of his kingship,
something that we also see Athlestan placing a large emphasis on.
So those are definite influences that we can see coming
through into the rain into the reign of Atlestan. One

(04:58):
very interesting thing about about Arthlestan himself is that quite
early on in his life he sent from the heart
of the West, Saxon Court, up into Mercier, where he's
brought up actually by his aunt who's a very interesting
character in her own right, someone called Athelflad who's the
lady of the Mercians, and her husband ethel Red, who's
the Lord of the Mercians. And we think that he
was probably sent away because his father, who was Edward

(05:21):
the Elder, the son of Alfred the Great, married on
two subsequent occasions after Ethelstan's mother, so we think he
was sent away at that point and raised in Mercier. Instead.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Well, earlier in the year I spoke to Matthew Firth
about early English queens and we do talk about Athel
Flood and that's the right one, right, I was telling
you earlier, I do fourteenth century and I got to
tell you all those ash names really confused me. So
we did talk about that and the fact that some
of these queens and family dynamics can be pretty spicy

(05:54):
at times. So we have Athelstan he's being raised in Mercier.
Do we have idea of what sort of things he
was learning at that time, like a broad sense, as
much as we don't have his journals from that time.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I wish we had his journals. That would be
fantastic if we forget that kind of insight. But what
we do have actually remarkably so. One of the main
contemporarynarrative text is a text called the Anglo Saxon Chronicle,
and embedded within the Anglo Saxon Chronicle are a set
of annals entries about Apple Flat, So we actually have
quite a clear view of the kind of person that
she was. And she was clearly an extraordinary leader. So

(06:30):
she was somebody who within mercy was trying to reclaim
bits of the Midlands from Scandinavian possessions, so trying to
win over different parts. She was very active militarily. She
was involved with her husband and with her brother in
constructing what we think are fortified strongholds, things called burrs,
in strategic locations across the Midlands in a way to

(06:51):
try and shore up that Midlands area. And I think
this would have sent a very potent example to Applestan,
you know, of the kind of leadership that was necessary
in the face of these difficulties within the English kingdoms.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Right. And one more thing that I want to dig
into about his early years, because he's away from court,
and we know, looking at this early English no matter
which kingdom we were looking at this time, when we're
looking at that sort of kingship, that sort of court,
knowing the people around you is very important. So how
do you think this would have affected his knowledge of

(07:24):
the goings on at home?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah? Absolutely, it's a really good question, and I think
something that's very difficult for Applestan to deal with. Actually,
when he first becomes king in ninety four, so he's
as the son of Edward the Elder, who had been
the previous king, and the grandson of Alfred. He's very
much part of the West Saxon royal house, but having
been brought up in Mercy. There's evidence that when he
first becomes king, there's a bit of hostility to him,

(07:48):
particularly from Winchester, so that the old center of the
West Saxon kingdom, and we even read about a plot
to have him blinded. So there's a historian in his
working in the early twelfth century, man called William of Malmesbury,
a monk at Malmesbury. He writes this very very interesting
history about English kings but also about English bishops, and
he recounts this tale that someone called Alfred had plotted

(08:10):
to have Athelstan blind and therefore neutralized politically. So yes,
definitely a degree of hostility to becoming king in the
first place, and maybe even that rule was shared in
nine two four when he first comes to the throne.
So he has a half brother called Elfwayard, and there's
a Winchester text which records the fact that Elfward was

(08:30):
also king at this early stage. And frustratingly this often
happens with the early medieval period, we don't get much
detail about what actually was going on. What does this
mean in reality, but we think that there may have
been a situation where Appelestan was king in Mercia and
Elfward was king in Wessex.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I mean, this is the type of thing that you're
working with, and probably why I stay very far away
from this time period, because you know, you think it
would be something that's very obvious. How many kings do
we have at this time? But it's not very obvious,
especially when we'll get into other kingdoms in a second.
People have all the same names so can be confusing.

(09:08):
But I mean it's worth noting that sharing kingship is
not all that weird at this moment either, so it's
very possible it could have happened.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, absolutely, I guess the good news for Adolestan was
that al Fayad only lived for a few more weeks,
so he dies very soon afterwards, and then Atholestan does
indeed become the sole king of the Anglo Saxons at
that point.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Okay, so when Athelstein comes to the throne, we've left
his grandfather Alfred behind. What sort of kingdom does he
get from his father?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
So ninety four he acceeds, probably jointly with his pot
brothers we mentioned, and then he becomes sole king and
at that moment we think that he's king both of
Wessex and of Merciers. So what had been the kingdom
of the Anglo Saxons under Edward the Elder and first
under Alfred and from that moment from ninety four. A
few years later in ninety seven he creates England for

(10:00):
the first time. So it's a very quick increase in
the I guess the extent of his authority that the
bands of his kingdom, So it's a very rapid rise
if you like Arlestan. It was really problematic coming to
the throne in the first place, he had to fight
for his position, and then only a few years later
he's creating England for the first time in ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yes, well, this is kind of the crux of our story,
and I think the reason why you really want to
write a book about this guy and talk about this guy.
So let's talk about nine twenty seven. When you talk
about creating England. What do you mean here? Because this
is a massive, massive event.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, it's a huge event. I have to say, having
grown up through the UK schooling system myself, I'm amazed
that I you know, until I was an undergraduate student,
I really didn't know about this state and the importance
of this state. In particular, when Athastan first becomes king
in ninety four, as I said, he's king of the
Anglo Saxons, king of Wessex and Mercia. At the same
time that he's king of that area, there's a Viking

(10:57):
ruler who's in charge in York and in the southern
part of Northumbria, man called Citric, and he seems to
have been a very powerful leader, and he's one of
a succession of Viking kings who's ruled in York up
until that moment. And Atholestan is he's clearly very aware
of the difficulties of dealing with these Viking settlers in
and around York. One of the things that he does
try and get them on side is that he marries

(11:18):
his full sister, whose name that we don't know. He
marries her to Citrix to try and sort of agree
I guess, an alliance between the two kingdoms. Now, what
happens in ninety seven is that Citric dies and Atlestan
gets word of his death and very quickly moves on
York and Northumbria. He marches north from William and Martbury.

(11:40):
Again we have an account where he raises the fortress,
the Viking fortress at York to the ground, takes it
under his control, and then he marches further north and
he goes to a place called ammont Bridge, which is
a mile south of modern Penrith in the northwest. And
there's an extraordinary ceremony that takes place at which various
different other British king So two kings from Welsh territories,

(12:02):
one from Scottish territory, and a Northumbrian ruler and we
think a ruler from the Northwest kingdom of Strathclyde and Cumbria.
They all agree to recognize the superiority of Battlestan that day,
and from nine two seven he is sort of rebranded,
if you like. There's a sort of pr spin that
goes on, and he's now the Rex Anglorium in Latin,
he's the King of the English, and it's the first

(12:24):
time that we have this sort of genuine usage of
that term. So it's an extraordinary, extraordinary moment when this happens.
In ninety seven. There was even a poet with him
in the entourage that day in July in ninety seven,
and he commissions this poet to write a poem celebrating
what's happened, and he writes these verses which he sends

(12:45):
to Winchester to announce that England has just been made whole.
Is the perfect a saxonia in Latin? That England has
been made whole? So an extraordinary moment in history.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
I have so many questions about this moment. First of all,
terminologies is important when we're talking about this period. So
this is the first time that we're talking about the
English as being the English and not Anglo Saxon. Do
I have that right?

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:09):
So there have been discussions before Athelstan's reign about a
single English people, what would it mean to be a
single English people? And in fact those discussions go all
the way back to the early eighth century with Bede.
It was an idea that probably came from Rome ultimately
and has been discussed in Northumbria, and it was really
revived at the course of King Alfred the Great, so
Athelstan's grandfather again just at the moment that he's creating

(13:30):
that wider policy of the Kingdom of the Anglo Saxons.
He's also discussing, you know, what do we share in common?
What common sense of identity do we have? And they
look to this Germanic identity of being the English people
and we get this reference in Old English to the
onngle kun so again the English for the first time
in Alfred's reign. So it's not so much that the
first discussion of that, it's the first time that you know,

(13:52):
Athlestan is the first one to bring it into a
political reality, you see, to mean he's he's created in
England of a geographical and political shape that is one
that's recognizable today for the first time.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, thank you for spilling it out, because there is
discussion about this, continues to be discussion about this. I'm
sure you're familiar with it, so I wanted to make
sure that we were on the same page here And okay,
So the thing that really gets me about nine twenty
seven is the geography. So this is a huge island.
The geography of Scotland's very different from that, Wills. What

(14:25):
would make you want to unite all of these kingdoms
and like tried to control them all at once, considering
the amount of manpower that you have like, what was
the ambition here? Why do you think that they wanted
that ethel'sten himself? Were the people around him wanted to unite?

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, it's a good question.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
I think they're probably multiple answers to it. I think
one thing, very plainly is it's got to be driven
by ambition and power and status. On Ethelstan's part, that's
what that's what he wants. He wants to be recognized
as a king. That's I guess exceeded what is his
father and grandfatherhood a chie So certainly that's part of it.
There's definitely a wealth aspect. Of course, the more land

(15:05):
that the king owns, the more more access to wealth
that they have, and therefore also I guess, the greater
security in their followers. You know, the way in which
early medieval kings worked is that they dispensed treasure to
their followers, to their supporters to make sure that they
had them on side, and of course by expanding territory
that that gave them great access to resources. So I
think that's definitely definitely part of it. So power and

(15:27):
status and wealth I think are high up the agenda
for why they did that. I think also if we
think about early England, we've already sort of given a
good sense of the political complexities of the place. You know,
it had been this sequence of independent kingdoms interspersed with
Viking settlement of various kinds and the constant threat of
overseas invasion from from Scandinavia and from other places. Then again,

(15:50):
I guess there was a there was a real logic
in trying to bring everyone together within within England and
within the English Kingdom if they were threatened in the
future by overseas. So I think it's probably a combination
of all of those.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Things, right, an alliance. But I'm at the top exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
I think that when you're looking at this time period,
there is always the specter of Charlemagne as well, and
I think this is in the minds of the people
who are living at this moment, and especially somebody who
wants to unite things. So when we're talking about like
this massive geographical area like Charlemagne was dealing with, do
you get a sense that Athelston is trying to centralize

(16:31):
and trying to make this work administratively the way that
Charlemagne was.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, that's a really important point. I think you're absolutely
right about that. I mean, we see lots of innovations
in governance by Ethlestean. I mean, one of the reasons
I find is reigns so interesting is exactly that that
you know, after ninety seven, for the first time, we
have unequivocal evidence of the existence of a sort of
royal scriptorium, a degree of centralized oversight of the production
of royal documents. So the king is charging a royal scribe,

(16:59):
who we call atholstan A. It's an anonymous title because
we don't know exactly who he was, but charging this
person with the production of royal diplomas for the king.
So definite centralized production there. And what these diplomas show
very startlingly is these extraordinary political gatherings. So at the
end of the royal diplomas, which are grants of land,
basically speaking, we have lists of witnesses of all of

(17:21):
the people who are present at the meeting of the
King's assembly. There are people drawn from Northumbria, from Wessex,
from Mercia, from different places, even from Welsh and Scottish territory,
so mimicking the large political gatherings that Charlemagne had encouraged
as well and similarly, Athlestan has a We're very fortunate
for Atlestan's reign that we have a whole sequence of
law codes that he issued which have happened to survive.

(17:44):
So he's a king who's keen to legislate again in
the same way that Charlemagne had been. So I think
that's a very important exemplar to bring up. And in fact,
another very interesting aspect of Atholstan's reign is that he's
trying to create very close links with contemporary Europe at
the same time, So he's a king who has a
sort of concerted foreign policy in a way that we've

(18:04):
not seen before as well.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yes, and we might get into that in a second.
Before we leave nine to twenty seven behind, I want
to ask one more question, and that is how do
you think this was accomplished? Because in the brief discussions
of kings that you might get in history books, where
they're like, here's how you can tell the king's apart,
there is always this flavor that Ethelsteen has done this
in a way that is perhaps pretty nasty, Like I

(18:28):
always get this sort of impression that he is thought
to be a king that was ruthless and maybe because
of the fact that he united these kingdoms together, and
maybe that's the only way we can conceive of this happening.
How do you think it happened, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Think there's definitely a degree of ruthlessness. You know, he's
certainly a marshal king. We see him going to warr
it various points. But I think what we should remember
is that, you know, that was very typical of the
early medieval period. You know, to be a successful king,
you had to be harshly successful as well. So definitely
definitely a king who's a warring king. But he also

(19:05):
tries to cement his authority over these places with governmental reforms,
the kind of things that we've been talking about, this
idea of there being a royal scriptorium. He takes this
into Northumbria. He's the first of the West Saxon kings
that we find able to grant Land via the mechanism
of royal diplomas. In the North. We see that happening
for the first time, and he legislates also that there

(19:25):
should be one system of coinage throughout the entirety of
the English Kingdom. Now, from the evidence of the coins
that survived, isn't he doesn't quite get there, but he's
at least trying to do that. So we see a
king who's got a view for the way these administrative
structures could work across the English Kingdom. So certainly it's
achieved by military effort in the first place, but it's
then tried to be secured by by these administrative means

(19:47):
as well.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
I mean, it's the best of both worlds, as much
as we can grasp from this distance, and as much
as I think when we understand kingship, they may not
be people that we want to make friends with, but
we can admire or at least understand the way that
they're achieving what they are achieving.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
I think that's a really good point, because you know,
we shouldn't think that it's just created overnight and that's it.
If you see what I mean. You know, people would
have received this message of the Kingdom of English very
differently depending on where they lived. You know, if they
were in the north, it would have been a very
different message from it if they were in the far southwest,
for example. So yeah, I mean it was a very
complex picture.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yes, And one of the things I found most fascinating
in your book something you've just brought up is his
law codes. Because the law codes are not created and
then static. As you say, there's a series of them
that show the thinking behind the changes in laws and
what can we actually accomplish, what should we accomplish? So
can we talk about the law codes for a moment.

(20:42):
What do you see in the early ones? What do
you see changing?

Speaker 2 (20:46):
I think the thing about the law codes that I
find really impressive is that we see a system of
governance that is quite dependent on the written word in
a way that you might not expect for such an
early period. So he issues law codes across his reign.
And you see what in particular that keeps cropping up
is that of theft. Theft is clearly a problem in
the early tenth century, and Atholestan issues laws about it.

(21:07):
He's got a major set of laws that issues at
a place called Greatly, and he tries to get rid
of theft. And some of the injunctions, you know, particularly
of course, to our modern mind, are absolutely brutal. You know,
anybody over the age of twelve who's caught stealing anything
of substances automatically killed. And what we see is these
law codes are sent out to different parts of the
kingdom and people who are responsible for enacting the law codes,

(21:29):
people like bishops or royal officials like a Alderman or reeves.
They're trying to implement the laws, seeing how it goes,
and then they're sending reports back to Athelestan, so we
get the reports back to Athelestan as well. So that's
what's extraordinary I think about Atholestan's ray that you get
the sort of issuing from the center, but then also
you get the sort of reciprocal reports coming back from
the different kingdom to show you know, what's the reality

(21:52):
of this. And as a result of those reports back,
Atholestan changes variously injunctions, for example, about thieves. He becomes
a bit less severe in his judgment in very subsequent
law codes, but then reverts again later in his reign
when it's still not working. So it's that toing and
throwing and that dependence on and written communication across the kingdom,
which I find fascinating.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, and considering he only ruled for about fifteen years,
so they've got to be people who are like, Okay,
what is the law right now about this? Like I
can't remember what the last adjustment amendment to this law was,
do we hang this person or not? I mean, I'm
making a joke about it, but it is true where
sometimes there's a lag in documentation and you have to

(22:36):
really think about this. But Athelston, I do think that
the laws around theft are really interesting as well, because
we know from historical records and people are not automatically killed.
A lot of people get off or fined whatever. But
he does seem to care about this to the point
where he's like, I don't like the idea of twelve
year olds being killed over this. Maybe we should phrase
this to fifteen. Yeah, So it must be happening somewhere

(22:59):
in that he's getting these reports back, and it's interesting
for somebody who may have the flavor of ruthlessness about
him around his biography that he's like, no, I'm not
okay with killing children. I think this is actually really
a big insight into this person's character as much as
we can have one.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, exactly right, Yeah, No, I think that's a very
good observation. And Lorca, some of them are written in
the first person singing this is sometimes you reallydo you
know the extent which this is true. I'm not sure,
but sometimes you do get a feeling of being, you know,
proximity to the discussions that were taking place at the
Royal Assembly when they would have been talking about these things.
You know, how should we legislate, how should we deal
with these matters? Certainly you know, it's at the center

(23:36):
of governance and what was what was happening.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Right, Okay, So he's doing his best to be the
king that he wants to be. Whether we are into
that or not. Some people are definitely not into that,
because things start to fragment a little bit and he
has to go off to Wark up north. So what
happens within a few years of this United Kingdom, Well.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
I guess one of the results of being a king
who's sort of expanding like this and trying to acquiere
territory in novel ways is of course that you'll create
resentment and enmity against you. And that's definitely what happened
with Athelstan. And he's beset by various different threats to
his position at various different points in his reign. In

(24:17):
nine three four he marches north, he stops at various
places on the way. We know he goes to Nottingham.
Then he goes to Chestley Street and he seems to
have been trying to win over the favor of big
local institutions, big churches, so the York Church and Chesley Street,
Saint Cuthbert's community. And he goes further north in nine
three four into Scotland where he wages a campaign of war,

(24:38):
and that seems to have been Again we don't have
very many records about what actually happened, but in the
very next year we find the Scottish king is summoned
to apple Stan's court. In those royal diplomas his name
crops up, so clearly there's been a sort of degree
of success on athole Stands following that expedition. But this
all comes to a head in the famous occay in

(25:00):
nine three seven at the Battle of Brunanburgh, where a
major coalition that comprised Olaf Guthferson, who was a Viking
from Dublin, and Constantine who was the king of the
Scots and Owen who was king of the Strathclyde and
Cumbrians joined forces and threatened Athelstein tried to topple him. Basically,

(25:21):
we know quite a lot about this battle because of
a remarkable poem that's inserted into the Anglo Saxon Chronicle
for the year nine three seven, which records it and
its outcome.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Well, I mean, let's talk about this, because if people
have heard of Athelstan, it's maybe not for uniting England,
it's probably for this battle. So what do we actually
know about this battle? Because even though we know more
perhaps and about other things, we still don't know a
lot about it.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, there's much that's still debated about it. I guess
one thing to say is that it's certainly it was
certainly a momentous occasion. And as we said earlier, war
was endemic. Battles were very common in the early medieval period.
But that this was a special occasion is clear from
the fact that that many of the sources from Ireland,
from Wales, from Scotland, from Scandinavia, they all record the

(26:06):
battle and its outcome. So the fact that it's getting
such wide coverage as an indication of just how significant
it was. And the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, that major contemporary
English text, it's quite silent, unfortunately in general for Aplestan's reign.
So it's clearly a significant moment that in nine three
seven it inserts this wonderful poem of heroic poem, sort
of eighty lines length or something like that, so very

(26:29):
significan occasion. Now, one of the big stumbling blocks that
you're hinting out, Daniels, is exactly where it took place.
And you know, there's been a huge amount of modern debate.
I think something like forties or fifty different locations have
been possible locations have been suggested for where Brunan Burr
might be. I think it's broadly agreed that it must
be in Northumbria, and the real debate is whether or

(26:49):
not it's in the west on the Irish Ey coast,
or whether it's it's in the east somewhere. Now my
own money's on a place called Bromborough on the Wirrald
and the west. That seems the most likely location for me.
But yes, it's full of full of interest and intrigue the.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Poem, right, So what can we tell from the poem?
Can we tell anything about the tactics or we just
know that in the end Ethelston is victorious. What do
we know about the battle itself?

Speaker 2 (27:16):
The poem waxes lyrical about the success, the victory that
apple Stan and is his half brother Edmund achieved that day,
and talks about the fact that the Viking coalition was
chased away and had to sort of escape to their
boats and flee back across the iris Ce. So that's
pretty much the broad outline of this this and you know,
it exults in the in the slaughter that's taken place,

(27:36):
the fact that there were bodies littering the ground which
were eaten by scavenger birds. It seemed to delight in
the kind of gory detail. It's just exulting in the
victory of apple Stan and it's half brother.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
And this is what I think they say in this
account that Athelstan's forces chase everybody down for like an
entire day, just killing them, just chasing them. I mean,
this is not unusual for a battle, but you don't
usually see like for the entire day. They very soon. Yeah,
so it is definitely something that would have been memorable

(28:09):
to the people who were there. They would have brought
reports back, It would have been something that really would
have made an impression, especially because again when we're thinking
about distances like this is a long way from Wessex
to go up to fight people who are more local
to the place, probably if we can figure out where
the place is.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, and I think, you know, if we're thinking about
the kind of reaction that that Athelstan would have received
for the fact that he was so aggressive militarily and
as a as a king. One text that really brings
it home for me is a is a Welsh poem
of about this, and it's a bit difficult to date,
but you know, I think it can be plausibly dated
to Athelstan's reign as a Welsh text called Arma's pridein

(28:49):
vaor the Great Prophecy of Britain, which calls in really
bloodthirsty terms for the Welsh and the Britons to rise
up and slaughter the English and drive them from the island. So,
if we're thinking about the which has certainly been received
in these British territories, that gives a good flavor of
the way that they at least experienced English kingship.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, which is not particularly nice. But in the end
Athelstan still is victorious here and he lives for another
couple of years. How does he end up dying in
the end? Is this one of those game of thrones
moments what happens.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
I'm afraid we don't know exactly how Arthelstan dies. This
is sort of laconic entry in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle
recording is death. One thing that's very interesting is that
having died, he's taken to Malmesbury Abbey where he's buried.
And in fact, if you go to Malmsbury today, there's
a beautiful late fourteenth early fifteenth century tomb of Athelstan
in the wonderful Abbey abbey there. And one of the

(29:45):
reasons that's very interesting is that his father and grandfather,
so Edward and Alfred, had been buried in the New
Minster in Winchester. So it seems to be sending some
kind of message that Athelstan is doing things differently. You know,
did he still consider himself an outside you know at
this point the fact that he's been brought up in Mercy,
or was he sending a message that he was a
king not just of Wessex but of a larger area too.

(30:07):
You know, these are good questions, but there was clearly
something pointed in the place that he chose to be
buried well.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
And this is interesting too because if he's being buried somewhere,
which is not where his ancestors traditionally being buried. Does
this mean that he had some time to figure this out? Like,
does this mean he maybe wasn't assassinated because he had
some times and say here's where I want to be buried,
or maybe he thought of it earlier. These are the questions, like,
I'm always interested it. We would just never know.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Two of his relatives have died in the Battle of Brunenburgh,
and there's an indication in the pages of William of
Malmesbury that Atlestown had been involved in saying that they
should be buried at Marmesbury, just as he wished. So
he clearly had some kind of input into the choice
of burial sight. And I think we can say that much.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
I mean, you do want to think about this before
you go into battle. You got to cover all the bases, right,
here's what I want to happen. So when he does die,
he actually has left behind no heirs, And this is
really interesting. Can you tell us why there are no heirs?

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well, a very notable feature of athole Stan's rain is
that he himself never married. There's no record of him
marrying and there's only one allusion to the fact that
he may have had a daughter, but it's written in
a twelve century text that we think just got it wrong.
Was trying to refer to his sister, and it was
actually a mistaken reference to his sister rather than a daughter.
So had no children to whom he could bequeath the throne.

(31:29):
And it's possible that because his father had married three
times in total and had left a number of sons
and a number of daughters, that actually there were already
a number of what we call athelings, an Old English
term which broadly means princes who were eligible for the
throne in their own right. And you know, one feasible
suggestion here is that Athelstan was aware of that and

(31:52):
simply didn't want to complicate matters further, and therefore didn't
leave any heirs of his own.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Well, this is interesting because when I was speaking with
Matthew Firth about this, and I think I've got the
right king and the right heir to the throne when
I said he left no heirs, He left no heirs
of his body. But he did decide who was going
to take over next, and these are his half brothers, right,
his younger half brothers, who he decides not to kill off.
This is really interesting to me. He allows them to

(32:17):
be raised well away from the court, and then he
allows them to come back to court, and he sort
of raised them prepares them for this. This is kind
of unusual in that if he had had an air
of his body, maybe that would have solved some of
the other athling problems. So this is still really interesting
to me. When do you think about this whole his

(32:37):
half brothers.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
I guess the interesting thing for me is that so
Edmund becomes king in nineteen nine is half brother, as
you say, after his death. And one of the things
that we see happening as well is of course that
the English Kingdom that he's created fragments, and that's the
big development after Battelstan's death. It carries the implication, I
guess that the creation of the English Kingdom in the
first place had wrested an awful lot on one person's shoulders.

(33:03):
Here it was Athelstan that was driving it forward, and
it was him who held it together. I mean, for me,
he was precociously powerful, if you said, I mean he
created something that was very much tied to him, and
so in nineteen nine, as Edmund becomes king in Wessex
and Mercia, what we see happening in York is that Olaf,
the very person who threatened Athelstan in nine three seven
at Brunnburg, he's able to come back and become king

(33:24):
in York in his own rights. And then it becomes
a really complex political situation across the middle of the
tenth century of tooing and throwing between different English kings
and Viking kings, oscillations of fortune and jostling for power.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
In its ways, well, I mean, we shouldn't have expected
it to stay permanent. The same thing happened to Charlemagne
as well, so you know, these things happen. But yeah,
it is very interesting when you think about somebody who
was thinking so carefully about administration, about unification. Even if
you put in all the safeguards, it may not work
out in the end.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean I think as well,
the way I like to think of it anyways, that
he'd sort of set a blueprint for what could be done.
And actually later in the tenth century, one of his
successes of King ed the Peaceable, he sort of drives
us forward in a new way and takes things to
new heights. So sort of edgersonmentz, I think what Apthlestan
had shown as possible.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yes, well, and I think that that is valuable as well,
because even if it doesn't continue on in the same way,
it gives people a reference point, right where in those
in between years you can think, were we better off
when we reunited or are we better off now? And
that is actually very valuable information, as much as that
can be a very turbulent time when you're living through it.

(34:39):
Absolutely yeah, I do want to give you a chance
to talk about documents, because this is one of the
books where I've seen a person just rave over documents,
maybe more than ever. So you really love the documents
of this time? What is so amazing about them?

Speaker 2 (34:57):
You're absolutely right? I love the diplomas that are produced
in apple Stand's name. We've talked a little bit about
diplomas already, but just to sort of refresh, I mean
a diploma in its original form, it's broadly speaking, a
grant of land and various legal privileges from the king
to an institution or to an individual. And I think
what I love about Alezan's documents is that his diplomas

(35:19):
rather is that they take on completely new form in
his reign. So they're unprecedented in their literary Guys, basically,
they're documents that are longer than any diplomas we've ever
seen before. In fact, so long are they that if
you go to look at them in their original form
in the British Library, you're sent to a separate desk
because they're so large to look at them. So they're

(35:39):
sending a sort of visual statement. We think these things
were composed and read at the meeting of the Royal Assembly,
so they were sending a statement of power and written
in phenomenally learned Latin. And you know, these are governmental
administrative documents which are designed to do the nitty gritty
of granting land. But actually they take so much care
in the way that they're written in the Latin that
they use. They allusions to seventh century authors, people like

(36:02):
Oldham of Malmesbury, and the Latin is very learned and
as I said, it alliterates, it rhymes, it has all
sorts of literary devices like hyperboton and Chaasmus. So basically
he's showing off he and his Royal Scribe. They're showing
off the political successes, the political advances that Athelstan has made.
So it's a way of, in the context of the
Royal Assembly trying to demonstrate exactly what athle Stan has

(36:25):
achieved as at the king. So yes, I'm afraid I
did really really enjoy looking at those diplomas, and I
think they send such strong messages about political authority and
performativity at the royal court.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yes, well, I hope you're not embarrassed by this, because
this is amazing. I love it when people are really
into something, because what you're seeing here is not just
an amazing document, but as you say, the implications are massive.
And we're talking about athel sten A the scribe right now, right,
So how much do you think this comes from the
man himself, the king himself, because you do say that

(36:59):
some of the palma's changed, so this is kind of
a feature of athelsen A, and we have talked a
little bit about the king himself being educated. So how
much of this do you think might come from the top.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think it is coming from the top. I think,
as you say, Daniell, Athelstan is a king who places
a special emphasis on learning. His court was a hub
of scholarship in various ways. He was encouraging scholars from
across Europe to come and to take part in discussions
and exchange texts and ideas. It's actually a place where
we think there was one of the earliest interactions in
England with the game of chess from India. That gives

(37:34):
you an indication of the kind of place that it was.
So he's certainly encouraging learning, and it's just in that
atmosphere that you can imagine these kind of literary innovations
taking place in everyday legal documents that the royal diplomas
that he's creating, and within the body of some of
the oryal diplomas, we have some stipulations that the people
receiving the land should be very careful in the prayers
that they say for the king and his family, and

(37:56):
that kind of personal reference I think is very likely
to have come from Athelestan himself. You know, I'll give
you this land, but you have to do this as
a result. So yes, I think he's driving it, and
I think another aspect of this is also again that
idea of the extent to which governance relied on the
written word, which is so interesting. These are also bilingual documents,
so again if we're thinking about the way that they

(38:16):
actually were used by those in the early tenth century,
mostly in Latin. They set out the sort of teas
and c's the terms and conditions of the grant in Latin,
and then when it gets to the bit of land
that's been granted, they give the outer bounds of this
in Old English, so in the vernacular. And these Old
English boundy causes are very wonderful for telling us about
the early English landscape. You know, they say, take a

(38:36):
right at the pond, go down to the big apple tree,
and so on and so forth. So get these wonderful
incidental references about the early English landscape, but again showing
us the way in which they must have been used.
You know, probably it was a local royal official who
was responsible for drawing up the bands, bringing it to
the meeting of the Royal Assembly when they were inserted
into this diploma. So yes, it's for all of these
reasons that I really sort of get so unwrapped in

(38:57):
his diplomas well.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
This is a huge thing that you're pointing to as well,
where you have Old English terminology for where the boundary
lines are. Because all of these things would have been
read out loud, some of the people would have understood
the Latin, most of the people maybe not. And when
we're talking about things like terminology, when we're saying that pond,
it's very important to put that in the words of

(39:20):
the people who actually would be living near that pond,
because if you call it something else in Latin and
people are like, wait, can we call it this? Perhaps
so this, I mean, there is a reason why you're
enthusiastic about this stuff. It is absolutely super informational in
ways that are rare for this period, and the fact

(39:40):
that these documents exist is rare as well.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, I mean even quite amazingly. People are hard at
work trying to recreate these bounds, you know, looking at
the original orl English boundary causes, going into the landscape
today trying to see where the boundaries would have occurred.
Quite often they are co terminus with parish boundaries later
parish boundaries, and in fact, some of the key features
like a big stone or a big tree are still
in the landscape today. So it becomes you know, this

(40:05):
very exhilarating experience of being able to recreate these early
tenth century boundary clauses in the modern landscape. It's extraordinary.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Well, I think that's very important work as well, because
then you get a good sense of what is fair
and how big it should be, and what sort of
aspects of the landscape would be brought into consideration. For example,
if a farming community, it's not fair for some people
to get something and other people to get other things.
There's probably compensation involved all of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yes, And I think you know what you're alluding to.
There is a whole process in the background of how
these things worked in reality, and you were talking about
it being read out, which is dead right. Perhaps also
they beat the bands, maybe they walked around the bands,
Maybe local officials took people around and showed people where
these things were, these markers in the landscape. So yes,
we get one document today, but behind that ares so
many layers of administration and process that you can understand.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yes, So I hope that you've convert to other people
into loving these documents as well, or just looking closely
to the documents that survive, because there are so many
other things that can be pulled from them. But as
we come to the end of our time. You mentioned
right at the end of your book, as so many
people who do biography should say. I think you should

(41:18):
say this if you're writing a biography, and that is
we should know this person, we should be talking about them,
we should be thinking about them more often. So this
is your moment. Why do you think people, more people,
all people should know about Athelstone.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Well, for me, it's all about ninety seven, and it's
creation of England in the first place. It's woefully little known.
I mean, it's a date that should be as important
to my mind as ten sixty six. And there are
two big anniversaries coming up. One is the eleven hundredth
anniversary of his coronation in ninety five on fourth September,
so in a short amount of time. The other is,

(41:52):
of course, in July twenty twenty seven, will be the
eleven hundredth anniversary of the creation of England in the
first place. So I hope as these big anniversary he's
come upon the horizon that the reign of Athelstan and
his achievements in ninety seven will be better known.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, this is the opportunity everyone who listens to the
Medieval Podcast has been forever changed by you in this episode, right,
I'm sure that's how it works. Well, thank you so much,
David for coming on and telling us all about Athelstan.
It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
To find out more about David's work, you can visit
his website at Deeve Woodman dot co dot uk. His
new book is The First King of England, Athelstan and
the Birth of a Kingdom. Before we go, here's Peter
from Medievalistant. Not to tell us what's on the website.
What's going on? Peter?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Hey, So the Shroud of Turn is again in the news.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
WHOA, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (42:47):
This is a perpetual news item for us. But there
is some new scholarship. Apparently a fourteenth century scholar named
Nicholas Orsmi wrote about the shroud between thirteen seventeen and
thirteen eighty, two years before the official investigation of this
shroud was done. So he called it an example of
clergymen doing fake miracles to get people to make donations.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Oh, that's always controversial.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Indeed, indeed, it's interesting to kind of note how even
way back then lots of doubts were raised about the
shroud of turin.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah. I like that in that you can see the
way that people investigated things like this, and that really
shows the mental processes that people went through when they
were trying to see if something was a true relic
or not.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's something that's still happening today, apparently with this relic
as there's lots and lots of online debate.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
As I discovered you just discovered. I was going to say,
this is give me a controversial article for you.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Well, maybe I knew about it before, Pat, I didn't
know there was a whole study devoted to it called syndology.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
So we have that piece. Plus we have a fun
article from Laura Chevalier on what was a good and
a bad tree in the Middle Ages.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
This sounds like the beginning of a joke. What's the
difference between a good tree and a bad tree?

Speaker 3 (44:08):
You know, there was lots of beliefs about was it
good for healing, did it cause problems? Did you want
to have it in your yard or not? For instance,
a good tree was apparently the linden or lime tree
as it was known.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
It was admired for its sweet fragrance.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, that's what immediately what I was thinking would smell amazing.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Apparently it drew in bees and kind of gave it
a musical quality. It was frequently planted near hospitals or
leoper houses as a healing tree.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
That sounds amazing. You're making me want to get one
from my house.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Indeed, indeed, I think we all should have a A lime.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Tree sounds good.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Now, if there's a tree you don't want, it's a
walnut tree.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Oh, why don't I want a walnut tree? I don't
love walnuts, so you don't have to take much to
convince me. But why don't I want one?

Speaker 3 (44:57):
A lot of medieval beliefs that its roots would poisonous
soil and even making your cattle sick if they left
their barn and went underneath its branches.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Whoa, I mean, I have a lot of cattle in
my backyards. I need to watch out for this, right.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, But even as leaves, it would make its leaves
fall and injure other trees. Whoa, So this was a
very bad tree.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
But of course people still wanted walnuts, so.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
You have to weigh it all in the balance.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Indeed, indeed, so if you were a medieval walnut gatherer.
It wasn't a risk free life.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
So we have that piece. Plus we also have forty
cities that had different names in the Middle Ages.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
There were a lot, and you have a list. Is
it top forty or just forty that we love?

Speaker 3 (45:46):
It was a forty I could find. I tried to
get fifty, but once I got to forty, I said
that that's good enough.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Okay, So for all the people that are trying to
figure out where the heck they are, this is the
guide for you.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Indeed, indeed, so it is a nice guide. It takes
you from Croatia to Japan.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Nice well, Thanks Peter for stopping by and telling us
where we are and what's on the website.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
This week we find out what happens to Charles the
sixth on the finale of my mini series This Is
History Presents the Glass King. It's been a wild ride
through forty of the most tumultuous years of French history,
and I hope that you've enjoyed it so far. Now
it's time to find out how the last days of
King Charles shape the fragile future of France itself. You

(46:35):
can catch all the action over on This is history,
and there's just over a week left before my class
is in session online. My Introduction to the fourteenth Century
course starts September twelfth, and it runs each week for
five weeks. I wanted to make this a course where
you get what you want out of it, so each

(46:55):
week I'll speak for an hour and then answer all
your burning questions about this period for another half hour.
If you're on the fence, think fast, because right now
the back to School sale is still on, where you
can get fifteen percent off any of the courses offered
with a coupon code back to School All one word.
You can find it all at Medieval Studies dot thinkivic

(47:17):
dot com. I hope to see you there. And finally,
a big thank you as always to all of you
for supporting my work by listening, sharing, letting the ads
play through, or becoming patrons on patreon dot com. Patrons
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(47:40):
out more or to become a patron, please visit patreon
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Follow Medievalists dot net, on Instagram at medievalist net or
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(48:01):
you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.
Our music is by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and
have yourself a fantastic day