The Reigns of Edmund, Eadred and Eadwig, 939-959 : New Interpretations

Essays highlighting the importance of three kings - Edmund, Eadred and Eadwig - in understanding England in the tenth century. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to both the expanding kingdom of Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, and ?helstan, and to the larger and integrated realm of their more distant successors, Edgar and ?helred II. However, the English kingdom in the 940s and 950s, and its three kings, Edmund (939-946), Eadred (946-955), and Eadwig (955-959), the men who inherited and held together the kingdom created by their immediate predecessors, have been somewhat neglected, with little research being dedicated to these men as kings, or the era in which they ruled. This volume offers a variety of approaches to the period. Its contributors bring to light royal legal innovations to ecclesiastical law, oaths, heriot, complex factional politics, including the crucial role of queens, differing perspectives on the final era of an independent northern kingdom of York, and developments in literary culture outside the domineering trend of the later monastic reformers.

Author: Mary Elizabeth Blanchard, Assistant Professor Christopher Tolin Riedel

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Publication Date: Feb 06, 2024

Number of Pages: 237 pages

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

ISBN-10: 1783277645

ISBN-13: 9781783277643