Eanred was

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

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 A ...

'' 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 Charlem ...

"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 Ear ...

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 o ...

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. Stone of Ecgbert - Dore 19-07-05

Eanred was the son of King Eardwulf, 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 E ...

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 pri ...

Copper styca of King Eanred (YORYM 2000 2334) obverse

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 "co ...

''. These ''stycas'' were of low

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

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 wi ...

. 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 bec ...

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 V ...

'
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