Eanred was
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
of
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
in the early ninth century.
Very little is known for certain about Eanred. The only reference made by the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' to the Northumbrians in this period is the statement that in 829
Egbert of Wessex
Ecgberht (770/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, Ecgbriht, Ecgbeorht, and Ecbert, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was King Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s, Ecgberht was forced into exile to Charlema ...
"led an army against the Northumbrians as far as
Dore, where they met him, and offered terms of obedience and subjection, on the acceptance of which they returned home",
''The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''
trans. James Henry Ingram (London: Everyman Press, 1912). Whilst the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle assigns these events to 827, the lunar eclipse
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow. Such alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six months, during the full moon phase, when the Moon's orbital plane is closest to the plane of the Earth ...
referred to in the same entry occurred in the winter of 828-29, and it is accepted that the correct year for Eanred's meeting with Egbert is 829. thereby, at least temporarily, extending Egbert's hegemony
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
to the entirety of Anglo-Saxon Britain.
Roger of Wendover
Roger of Wendover (died 6 May 1236), probably a native of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, was an English chronicler of the 13th century.
At an uncertain date he became a monk at St Albans Abbey; afterwards he was appointed prior of the cell of ...
states that Eanred reigned from 810 until 840, the twelfth-century '' History of the Church of Durham'' records a reign of 33 years, and a recently discovered coin of Eanred has been dated to c. 850 on stylistic grounds. Given the turbulence of Northumbrian history in this period, a reign of this length suggests a figure of some significance. Within a generation of Eanred's death, Anglian monarchy in Northumbria had collapsed.
Eanred was the son of King Eardwulf Eardwulf or Eardulf is an Anglo-Saxon male name. Notable people with the name include:
* Eardwulf of Northumbria, (floruit late 8th/early 9th century), ruler of Northumbria
* Eardwulf of Kent (floruit middle 8th century), ruler of Kent
* Eardwulf, B ...
, who was deposed by an otherwise unknown Ælfwald in 806. According to the ''History of the Church of Durham'', Ælfwald ruled for two years before Eanred succeeded. However, Frankish sources claim that, after being expelled from England, Eardwulf was received by Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
and then the pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
, and that their envoys escorted him back to Northumbria and secured his restoration to power. Therefore the precise nature of the succession of Eanred is unclear. All sources agree that Eanred was eventually succeeded by his son, Æthelred
Æthelred (; ang, Æþelræd ) or Ethelred () is an Old English personal name (a compound of '' æþele'' and '' ræd'', meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to:
Anglo-Saxon England
* Æthelred and Æthelberht, legendary prin ...
.
Eanred's reign sees the appearance of the ''styca
The styca (; . ''stycas'') was a small coin minted in pre-Viking Northumbria, originally in base silver and subsequently in a copper alloy. Production began in the 790s and continued until the 850s, though the coin remained in circulation until the ...
'', a new style of small coin which replaced the earlier ''sceat
A ( ; ang, sceatt , ) was a small, thick silver coin minted in England, Frisia, and Jutland during the Anglo-Saxon period that normally weighed 0.8–1.3 grams.
History
Its name derives from Old English ', meaning "wealth", "money", and "coi ...
''. These ''stycas'' were of low silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
content, later coins being effectively brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
. Produced in York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, large numbers have survived and several moneyer
A moneyer is a private individual who is officially permitted to mint money. Usually the rights to coin money are bestowed as a concession by a state or government. Moneyers have a long tradition, dating back at least to ancient Greece. They beca ...
s are named on the surviving coins, suggesting that they were minted in significant quantities. Higham estimates that hundreds of thousands of ''stycas'' were in circulation. The distribution of the coin finds suggests that their principal use was in external trade and that, apart from for the payment of taxes, coins were little used by the great majority of Northumbrians in daily life.
Footnotes
References
* Higham, N.J., ''The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350-1100'' (Stroud: Sutton, 1993).
* Kirby, D.P., ''The Earliest English Kings'' (London: Unwin Hyman, 1991).
*
External links
*
* The Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...
'
Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eanred Of Northumbria
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
Anglo-Saxon warriors
Northumbrian monarchs
9th-century English monarchs