Æthelweard (died 854) was a 9th-century king of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

and Suffolk. Little is known of Æthelweard's reign and even his regnal dates are not known for certain. He was succeeded by Edmund, who was said to have been crowned on 25 December 854.

9th century East Anglia

Prior to the arrival of the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and ...

, the 6th century

Kingdom of the East Angles la, Regnum Orientalium Anglorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the East Angles , common_name = East Anglia , era = , status = Great Kingdom , status_text = Independent (6th centu ...

was rich and powerful, with a distinctive ecclesiastical culture. Between this time and the early Norman period, practically nothing is known of the history of East Anglia, except that the kingdom was rich and powerful enough to remain independent. Its kings are in some cases known only from the coins issued during their reigns. According to the historian

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 histor ...

, Viking attacks eventually destroyed all the East Anglian

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

, where books and charters would have been kept.

Life and reign of Æthelweard

As with

Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his fir ...

, whom he succeeded, textual evidence for Æthelweard's reign is very limited. He is not mentioned in the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. However, numismatic evidence in the form of surviving coinage suggests that he was the ruler of an independent kingdom and not subject to

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879) Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

. The date when Æthelweard became king is uncertain, but it is conventionally dated to the middle or late 840s. It appears that he died in 854. He was succeeded as king by his fourteen-year-old son Edmund, later known as Saint Edmund, who was said to have been crowned on 25 December 854.Kirby, ''The Earliest English Kings'', p. 161

References

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External links

*; see also East Anglian monarchs 854 deaths 9th-century English monarchs Year of birth unknown {{UK-royal-stub