Edgar ( ang, Ēadgār ; 8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was
King of the English from 959 until his death in 975. The younger son of King
Edmund I and
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury (died 944) was the first wife of King Edmund I (r. 939–946). She was Queen of the English from her marriage in around 939 until her death in 944. Ælfgifu and Edmund were the parents of two future English kings, Eadw ...
, he came to the throne as a teenager following the death of his older brother, King
Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was
Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Jus ...
. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for
the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son
Edward, although the succession was disputed.
Early years and accession
Edgar was the son of
Edmund I and
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury (died 944) was the first wife of King Edmund I (r. 939–946). She was Queen of the English from her marriage in around 939 until her death in 944. Ælfgifu and Edmund were the parents of two future English kings, Eadw ...
. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle,
Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew,
Eadwig, Edmund's eldest son.
Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily
St Dunstan
Saint Dunstan (c. 909 – 19 May 988) was an English bishop. He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised as a saint. His work restored monastic life in ...
and
Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar.
A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the
Thames. Edgar became
King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged about 16.
Government
One of Edgar's first actions was to recall
Dunstan from exile and have him made
Bishop of Worcester
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
and Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, subsequently
Bishop of London
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
and later,
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Jus ...
. Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign.
Edgar's reign is noted for the lack of conflict in comparison to his predecessors. Richard Humble has stated that this state of affairs primarily arose due to the fact Scandinavia was 'largely quiescent' during this period and Viking activity directed towards England was much reduced. While this enabled England to experience a period of stability and prosperity, it also led to a partial decay of the '
Fyrd', a levy system based around temporary military service by freemen, which reduced the Kingdoms military preparedness.
The
Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of
Eadred.
William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England''. Born into a middle-class family in ...
mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.
According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom". Indeed, an early eleventh century king
Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that
''it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford''.
Benedictine reform
The
Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the
Benedictine Rule
The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot.
The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...
to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan,
Æthelwold, and
Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
* Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbu ...
(historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).
Dead Man's Plack
In 963, Edgar allegedly killed
Ealdorman Æthelwald, his rival in love, near present-day
Longparish
Longparish is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It is composed of the four hamlets of Middleton, East Aston, West Aston and Forton that over time have expanded and effectively joined up to become one village. Longparish is situate ...
, Hampshire.
The event was commemorated by the
Dead Man's Plack, a stone cross erected in 1825.
In 1875,
Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, ''Historic Essays''; however, his arguments were challenged by naturalist
William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book ''Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn''.
Coronation at Bath
Edgar was crowned at
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
and along with his wife Ælfthryth was
anointed
Anointing is the ritual act of pouring aromatic oil over a person's head or entire body.
By extension, the term is also applied to related acts of sprinkling, dousing, or smearing a person or object with any perfumed oil, milk, butter, or oth ...
, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself. Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in 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 ...
'', forms the basis of the present-day
British coronation ceremony.
The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
. Six kings in Britain, including the
King of Scots and the
King of Strathclyde
The list of the kings of Strathclyde concerns the kings of Alt Clut, later Strathclyde, a Brythonic kingdom in what is now western Scotland.
The kingdom was ruled from Dumbarton Rock, ''Alt Clut'', the Brythonic name of the rock, until around ...
, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the
River Dee. Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.
Marriages and children
Edgar is known to have had 3 relationships that produced children.
His first wife (or consort) was Æthelflæd Eneda (the 'white duck'), daughter of
Ealdorman Ordmaer, who acquired land in Devon. They married sometime before he became king, about 957. Together they had one son:
*
Edward the Martyr (born c. 962 - died 978)
Wulfthryth of Wilton, who was educated at
Wilton Abbey, became his second consort. It is disputed whether they married, but
Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke FRHistS FSA (born 1951, Barbara Anne Elizabeth Troubridge) is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England, specialising in many subtopics, including 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism. She is currently emeritus professor of early Medieval histo ...
argues that they did. Edgar removed Wulfthryth from Wilton Abbey (some sources say abducted) in 962 and returned her to Wilton Abbey by 964. She then took vows and became Abbess. Edgar and Wulfthryth had one daughter, who is said to have returned with her mother to the abbey:
*
Edith of Wilton also known as Saint Edith.
About 964/965 Edgar married again, his third relationship, to
Ælfthryth, widow of
Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia, Edgar's adopted brother. Ælfthryth was the daughter of Ealdorman
Ordgar
Ordgar (died 971) was Ealdorman of Devon in England. He was a great West Country landowner and apparently a close advisor of his son-in-law Edgar the Peaceful, king of England. His daughter Ælfthryth was King Edgar's third wife and was the moth ...
and his wife, a member of the royal family of Wessex. Legend has it that Edgar heard of Ælfthryth's great beauty and sent Æthelwald to arrange marriage for him (Edgar) but Æthelwald instead married her himself. In retaliation Æthelwald was killed 'in a hunting accident' and Edgar married her as he had wanted. It is not known if this is true or simply romantic fiction. Edgar and Ælfthryth had two sons:
*Edmund Atheling (born c. 966 - died c.970)
*
Æthelred the Unready (born c. 968 - d. 23 April 1016)
After the death of Edward the Martyr in 978, Æthelred was not yet old enough to rule on his own and Ælfthryth acted as regent.
Death
Edgar died on 8 July 975 at
Winchester, Hampshire
Winchester is a cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, at the western end of the South Downs National Park, on the River Itchen. It is south-west of Londo ...
. He was buried at
Glastonbury Abbey
Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction.
The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It w ...
. He left two sons, his successor
Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd, daughter of ealdorman Ordmaer, and
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 pri ...
, the younger, the child of his wife
Ælfthryth. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter,
Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.
Veneration
Edgar the Peaceful is
venerated in the
Catholic Church and the
Eastern Orthodox Church on 8 July.
See also
*
House of Wessex family tree
This is a list of monarchs of Wessex until AD 886. For later monarchs, see the List of English monarchs. While the details of the later monarchs are confirmed by a number of sources, the earlier ones are in many cases obscure.
The names are gi ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
*
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External links
*
Medieval Sourcebook: Anglo-Saxon Dooms:laws of King Edgar, a fragment
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edgar the Peaceful
Monarchs of England before 1066
940s births
Year of birth uncertain
975 deaths
Burials at Glastonbury Abbey
10th-century English monarchs
House of Wessex
10th-century Christian saints
10th-century births
10th-century deaths
English Christian religious leaders
English Roman Catholic saints
Roman Catholic royal saints
Eastern Orthodox royal saints
Christian monarchs
Military saints
Eastern Orthodox saints
Christian royal saints
Saints
English saints
Christian saints of the Middle Ages
Medieval English saints
Sons of kings
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