Ealhmund was King of
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in 784. He is reputed to be the father of King
Egbert
Egbert is a name that derives from old Germanic words meaning "bright edge", such as that of a blade. Anglo-Saxon variant spellings include Ecgberht () and Ecgbert. German variant spellings include Ekbert and Ecbert.
People with the first name Mid ...
who was King of Wessex and, later, King of Kent.
Asser
Asser (; ; died 909) was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his ...
's ''The Life of King Alfred'' identifies him as the son of Eafa.
Biography
He is not known to have struck any coins, and the only contemporary evidence of him is an abstract of a charter dated 784, in which Ealhmund granted land to the
Abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...
of
Reculver
Reculver is a village and coastal resort about east of Herne Bay on the north coast of Kent in south-east England.
It is in the ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent.
Reculver once occupied a strategic location ...
. In this charter he is identified as Ealmundus rex Canciæ. By the following year
Offa of Mercia seems to have been ruling directly, as he issued a charter without any mention of a local king.
General consensus among historians is this is the same Ealhmund found in two pedigrees in the
Winchester (Parker) Chronicle, compiled during the reign of
Alfred the Great.
[Bierbrier, p. 382] The genealogical preface to this manuscript, as well as the annual entry (covering years 855–859) describing the death of
Æthelwulf, both make King
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 Charlem ...
the son of an Ealhmund, who was son of Eafa, grandson of Eoppa, and great-grandson of Ingild, the brother of King
Ine of Wessex
Ine, also rendered Ini or Ina, ( la, Inus; c. AD 670 – after 726) was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecesso ...
, and descendant of founder
Cerdic
Cerdic (; la, Cerdicus) is described in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first king of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent kings of Wessex were each cla ...
, and therefore a member of the
House of Wessex
The House of Wessex, also known as the Cerdicings and the West Saxon dynasty, refers to the family, traditionally founded by Cerdic, that ruled Wessex in Southern England from the early 6th century. The house became dominant in southern England aft ...
(see
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 give ...
). A further entry has been added in a later hand to the 784 annal, reporting Ealhmund's reign in Kent.
Finally, in the
Canterbury Bilingual Epitome, originally compiled after the
Norman conquest of England, a later scribe has likewise added to the 784 annal not only Ealhmund's reign in Kent, but his explicit identification with the father of Egbert. Based on this reconstruction, in which a Wessex scion became King of Kent, his own Kentish name and that of his son, Egbert, it has been suggested that his mother derived from the royal house of Kent, a connection dismissed by a recent critical review.
Historian Heather Edwards has suggested that Ealhmund was probably a Kentish royal scion, whose pedigree was forged to give his son Egbert the descent from Cerdic requisite to reigning in
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 ...
.
[Edwards, "Ecgberht"]
Issue
Ealhmund's wife is not known; he is identified as the father of:
*
Ecgberht, King 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 ...
*
Æthelburh of Wilton, wife of
Wulfstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire
Weohstan (died 802) was the ealdorman of Wiltshire, part of the kingdom of Wessex, at the beginning of the ninth century. In 802 King Beorhtric died, and on the same day ealdorman Æthelmund of the Hwicce invaded Wiltshire. He was met by a Wilt ...
See also
*
List of monarchs of Kent
This is a list of the kings of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Kent.
The regnal dates for the earlier kings are known only from Bede. Some kings are known mainly from charters, of which several are forgeries, while others have been subjected to tampe ...
Notes
References
*
Asser, John, ''The Life of King Alfred'', https://archive.org/details/asserslifeofking00asseiala/page/1/mode/1up
*Bierbrier, M.L., "Genealogical Flights of Fancy. Old Assumptions, New Sources", ''Foundations: Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy'', 2:379–87.
*
*Garmonsway, G.N. ed., ''The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
*
*
Kelley, David H., "The House of Aethelred", in Brooks, Lindsay L., ed., ''Studies in Genealogy and Family History in Tribute to Charles Evans''. Salt Lake City: The Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy, Occasional Publication, No. 2, pp. 63–93.
External links
*
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Year 784Mention of his reign.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ealhmund of Kent
Kentish monarchs
780s deaths
8th-century English monarchs
Year of birth unknown
Year of death uncertain