Æthelstan A
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Æthelstan A () is the name given by historians to an unknown
scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
who drafted
charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...
s (or diplomas), by which the king made grants of land, for King
Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ; ; ; – 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 first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern histori ...
of England between 928 and 935. They are an important source for historians as they provide far more information than other charters of the period, showing the date and place of the grant, and having an unusually long list of witnesses, including Welsh kings and occasionally kings of
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
and
Strathclyde Strathclyde ( in Welsh language, Welsh; in Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic, meaning 'strath
alley An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, footpath, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path, w ...
of the River Clyde') was one of nine former Local government in Scotland, local government Regions and districts of Scotland, regions of Scotland cre ...
. The Æthelstan A charters commence shortly after King Æthelstan conquered Northumbria in 927, making him the first king to rule the whole of England. The diplomas give the king titles such as "King of the English" and "King of the Whole of Britain", and this is seen by historians as part of a rhetoric which reflected his master's claim for a new status, higher than previous West Saxon kings. The diplomas are written in elaborate Latin known as the '' hermeneutic style'', which became dominant in Anglo-Latin literature from the mid-tenth century and a hallmark of the
English Benedictine Reform The English Benedictine Reform or Monastic Reform of the Anglo-Saxon Christianity, English church in the late tenth century was a religious and intellectual movement in the later History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon period. In the mid-te ...
. Scholars vary widely in their views of his style, which has been described as "pretentious" and "almost impenetrable", but also as "poetic" and "as enduringly fascinating as it is complex". Æthelstan A ceased to draft charters after 935, and his successors returned to a simpler style, suggesting that he was working on his own rather than being a member of a royal scriptorium.


Background

After the death of
Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...
in 735, Latin prose in England declined. It reached its lowest level in the ninth century, when few books and charters were produced, and they were of poor quality. King Æthelstan's grandfather,
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...
(871–899), embarked on an extensive programme to improve learning, and by the 890s the standard of Latin in charters was improving. Few charters survive from the reigns of Alfred and his son,
Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (870s?17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousi ...
(899–924), and none from 909 to 925. Until then, charters had generally been plain legal documents, and King Æthelstan's early diplomas were similar. Until about 900, diplomas appear to have been drawn up in varying traditions and circumstances, but in later Anglo-Saxon times (c. 900–1066) charters can be more clearly defined. According to
Simon Keynes Simon Douglas Keynes ( ; born 23 September 1952) is a British historian who is Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon emeritus in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Trini ...
:
In this period, a diploma can be characterised as a formal and symbolic record, in Latin, of an occasion when the king, acting in a royal assembly, and with the consent of the ecclesiastical and secular orders, created an estate of "bookland" at a specified place, and conveyed it on the privileged terms defined by the "book", or diploma, to a named beneficiary. This act of establishing a particular estate as bookland, so that it could be held henceforth on these privileged terms, could be performed only by the king, in a royal assembly; but the diploma itself served hereafter as the title-deed for the land in question. It established that the land was to be held, with its appurtenances, free from the imposition of worldly burdens, with the exception of military service, bridge-work and fortress-work, and with the power to give it to anyone of its owner's choosing.


Identity of Æthelstan A

In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was a debate among historians as to whether late Anglo-Saxon charters were produced by a royal chancery or by monasteries on behalf of beneficiaries. In the 1910s, W. H. Stevenson argued that charters in different areas of England were drawn up by the same hand, which would be unlikely if they were drawn up locally, supporting the case that the writers were royal clerks. The German scholar Richard Drögereit followed this up in 1935 by examining original charters between 931 and 963, and identified three scribes from their handwriting, whom he called Æthelstan A, Æthelstan C and Edmund C. Other charters which only existed in copies he allocated to these and other scribes on the basis of their style. In 2002 Keynes listed twenty "Æthelstan A" charters, of which two are original and the rest copies. The boundary clauses of the Æthelstan A charters were written in correct
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
, so it is unlikely that he was of foreign origin. The witness lists of the Æthelstan A charters consistently place Bishop Ælfwine of
Lichfield Lichfield () is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated south-east of the county town of Stafford, north-east of Walsall, north-west of ...
in Mercia in a higher position than his rank warranted. King Æthelstan was probably brought up in Mercia, and in Sarah Foot's view he was probably intimate with Ælfwine before King Edward's death; as Ælfwine disappeared from the witness lists at the same time as the Æthelstan A charters ended, she suggests that he may have been Æthelstan A. Keynes thinks it more likely Æthelstan A was a king's priest from Mercia, who acquired his learning in a Mercian religious house and respected Ælfwine as a fellow Mercian; that Æthelstan A entered Æthelstan's service before he became king and was in permanent attendance on him. David Woodman also considers a Mercian origin likely, pointing out that some Mercian ninth-century charters have borrowings from Aldhelm, an important source of Æthelstan A's style. Woodman also puts forward the alternative idea that Æthelstan A had a connection with
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 wa ...
in
Wessex The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Sa ...
, which appears to have been a centre of learning at this time, and certainly housed many of the texts which informed Æthelstan A's idiosyncratic Latin style.


Significance of the charters

The first charter produced by Æthelstan A in 928 described the king as ''rex Anglorum'', "king of the English", the first time that title had been used. By 931 he had become "king of the English, elevated by the right hand of the Almighty to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain". Some charters were witnessed by Welsh kings, and occasionally by the kings of Scotland and
Strathclyde Strathclyde ( in Welsh language, Welsh; in Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic, meaning 'strath
alley An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, footpath, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path, w ...
of the River Clyde') was one of nine former Local government in Scotland, local government Regions and districts of Scotland, regions of Scotland cre ...
, signifying acceptance of Æthelstan's lordship. In Keynes's view, it cannot be a coincidence that the charters commenced immediately after the conquest of Northumbria, and Æthelstan A's primary aim was to display the "grandeur of Æthelstan's kingship". Foot argues that the king's inner circle quickly seized on the potential of the conquest for "ideological aggrandizement of the king's public standing". To Keynes, the diplomas "are symbolic of a monarchy invigorated by success, developing the pretensions commensurate with its actual achievements and clothing itself in the trappings of a new political order." He sees the fifty years from 925 to 975 as "the golden age of the Anglo-Saxon royal diploma". Before 928 charters had been produced in various ways, sometimes by royal priests, sometimes by other priests on behalf of the beneficiaries. Æthelstan A was solely responsible for the production of charters between 928 and 934. King Æthelstan thus took unprecedented control over an important part of his functions. In 935 Æthelstan A shared the work with other scribes, and he then apparently retired. His charters have exceptionally long witness lists, with 101 names for a grant by the king to his
thegn In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn or thane (Latin minister) was an aristocrat who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen. He had to be a substantial landowner. Thanage refers to the tenure by which lands were ...
Wulfgar at Lifton in Devon in 931, and 92 for a grant to Ælfgar at
Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...
in 934. The witness lists of King Æthelstan's father and grandfather were much shorter, with the longest in Alfred the Great's reign having only 19 names. In John Maddicott's view the long lists in Æthelstan's reign reflect a change of direction to larger assemblies. The king established a novel system, with his scribe travelling with him from meeting to meeting, and a uniform format of charters. The dating clause showed the
regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of rule, a t ...
, the indiction, the epact, and the age of the moon. In Keynes's view: "Nothing quite like them had been seen before; and they must have seemed magnificent, even intimidating, in their formality and their grandeur." A unique feature is that three charters in favour of a religious community require it to sing a specified number of psalms for the king, indicating a particular interest in psalmody by the king or scribe. Frankish annalists usually recorded a king's location at Easter and Christmas, but this was not a practice of English chroniclers, and the only period in the tenth and eleventh centuries for which historians can construct a partial itinerary of the king's movements is provided by the location of assemblies recorded in Æthelstan A's charters of 928 to 935. Other charters rarely named the place of assembly, apart from a group in the 940s and early 950s known as the "alliterative" charters. In 935 a new simplified format was introduced by other scribes, apparently while Æthelstan A was still active, and became the standard until the late 950s. This coincided with the disappearance of Wulfstan I,
Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...
from the witness lists, and greater prominence of the Bishops of
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' the offic ...
, and the new format may have reflected a change of outlook at court. As charters were no longer written in Æthelstan A's distinctive style when he ceased producing them, it is likely he was working on his own rather than heading a royal scriptorium.


Style of the charters

The standard of Latin prose improved in the tenth century, especially after about 960, when the leaders of the Benedictine reform movement adopted the elaborate and ornate style of Latin now called by historians the ''hermeneutic style''. Use of this style, influenced especially by Aldhelm's ''De virginitate'', dates back to King Æthelstan's reign. Æthelstan A borrowed heavily from Aldhelm; he would not copy whole sentences, only a word or a few words, incorporating them in a structure reminiscent of Aldhelm's works. In Woodman's view, "Æthelstan A" varied the language in each charter out of a delight in experimentation and to demonstrate his literary ability. The florid style of seventh-century Irish texts known as Hiberno-Latin was influential on the Continent due to the work of Irish missionaries in Europe. Some works were known to English writers such as Aldhelm in the same century, but it is likely that Æthelstan A learnt of them from continental scholars such as Israel the Grammarian, who brought texts influenced by Hiberno-Latin to King Æthelstan's court. Woodman states that: "whilst it is true that the main impetus for the literary revival of Latin prose occurred from the mid-tenth century, the beginnings of this style of Latin can actually be found rather earlier and in the most unlikely of places. In fact it is ''diplomas'' of the 920s and 930s that are the first to display this distinctive Latin in its most exuberant form." According to Scott Thompson Smith Æthelstan A's diplomas "are generally characterised by a rich
pleonastic Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness", "burning fire", "the man he said", or "vibrating with motion". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria. Pleonasm may also be used f ...
style with aggressively literary
proem __NOTOC__ A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a ''foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes ...
s and anathemas, ostentatious language and imagery throughout, decorative rhetorical figures, elaborate dating clauses, and extensive witness lists. These are clearly documents with stylistic ambitions." Few listeners would have understood them when they were read out at royal assemblies. In Charter S 425 of 934, the second of the two originals to survive, Æthelstan A wrote (in Smith's translation):
The wanton fortune of the deceiving world, not lovely with the milky-white radiance of unfading lilies but odious with the galling bitterness of woeful corruption, raging with venomous jaws tears with its teeth the sons of fetid flesh in the vale of tears; although with its smiles it may be alluring to the unfortunate, it brazenly leads down to the lowest depths of Acherontic Cocytus unless
the offspring The Offspring is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Garden Grove, California, in 1984. Originally formed under the name Manic Subsidal, the band currently consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Dexter Holland, Bryan "Dexter" Holland, ...
of the High-Thunderer should intervene. And so because that ruinous ortunemortally fades away in its failing, one must especially hasten to pleasant fields of ineffable joy where the angelic music of hymnal jubilation and the mellifluous scent of blooming roses are sensed as sweet beyond measure by good and blessed noses and heard by ears as the delights of musical instrument without end.
In S 416 of 931, the first original to survive, after the boundary clause in Old English, he reverted to Latin for the anathema against anyone who set aside the charter:
If, however, God forbid, anyone swollen with diabolic spirit should be tempted to diminish or annul this brief document of my arrangement and confirmation, let him know that on the final and great day of judgment, when the archangel's shrill trumpet rings out, when graves burst open by themselves and give up the bodies now revived, when every element trembles, with the traitor Judas, who is called "son of perdition" by the Sower's merciful Offspring, he is to perish in eternal confusion within the hungry flames of unspeakable torments.
Some scholars are not impressed.
Michael Lapidge Michael Lapidge, FBA (born 8 February 1942) is a scholar in the field of Medieval Latin literature, particularly that composed in Anglo-Saxon England during the period 600–1100 AD; he is an emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a Fellow ...
describes Æthelstan A's style as "pretentious", and according to Mechtild Gretsch the diplomas
are composed in almost impenetrable Latin. Their proems consist of long convoluted sentences, parading an ostentatious display of Greek and glossary-based vocabulary and containing numerous unmistakable verbal reminiscences of Aldhelm's writings. Nothing similar had previously been attempted in Anglo-Saxon diplomatic and although, later in the tenth century, other charters affecting the hermeneutic style were composed, the ferocious lexical and syntactical difficulties of these Æthelstan charters were never to be surpassed.
On the other hand, Drögereit describes Æthelstan A's style as having a "poetic quality", and Woodman describes him as an "author of no little genius, a man who not only overhauled the legal form of the diploma but also had the ability to write Latin that is as enduringly fascinating as it is complex." In Woodman's view: "Never before had the royal diploma's rhetorical properties been exploited to such a degree and it seems no coincidence that these documents appeared following King Æthelstan's momentous political conquest of the north in 927."


List of charters

Keynes listed the Æthelstan A charters in Table XXVII of his ''Atlas of Attestations''. The charters are in the script called "Square minuscule ('Phase II')", with a Latin text and the boundary clause in the vernacular.


Charters


See also

*
Anglo-Saxon charters Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in England which typically made a grant of land or recorded a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s: the oldest surviving charters granted land to ...


Notes


References


Sources

* (Translation on Kemble: The Anglo-Saxon Charters Website) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aethelstan A 10th-century births 10th-century deaths 10th-century writers in Latin Anglo-Saxon writers Grammarians of Latin Medieval linguists Place of birth unknown Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 10th-century English writers