For most of the world, today marks the beginning of the year. To those of us who use the Gregorian calendar, January 1st reflects another completion of the earth’s rotations around the sun, inspiring new resolutions and thoughts of fresh beginnings.

As is often the case, new year celebrations are a good example of something that feels timeless, scientific, and established - but a knowledge of history and other cultures informs us that it is entirely constructed.

That the new year begins today is rather arbitrary. It is not reflected in the astronomical movements of the solar system, nor can these movements be precisely measured in lots of 365 days. 2024 was a leap year to account for the fact that as astronomical year is closer to 365 and a quarter days. The Julian Calendar, which was established by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, had a leap year once every 4 years without exception. However, the astronomical year is actually 365.2422 days, meaning that the calendar shifted out of sync by one day per century. There was a concern that important liturgical feast days such as Easter were being celebrated on the wrong day.

The Gregorian calendar came into effect officially in 1582 to rectify this problem, under the authority of Pope Gregory XIII. This calendar does not have a leap year during years that are divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400, to account for the slight discrepancy, and the calendar was pushed forward by 10 days. (Bad luck for those who missed their birthdays - or did it simply make them a year younger?). The Gregorian calendar has been adopted incrementally by nations in the centuries since. Many cultures use alternative calendars - and to those people, today is just any other day.

In early medieval England, the calendar year was not standardised like it is now. There were varying opinions about when the calendar year should renew, and different historical sources consider the beginning of the year to land on different dates. For historians trying to work out exactly when events happened, this can become a real problem.

The historian Bede (who lived c. 672-735) tells us in his work The Reckoning of Time that before the conversion of the English people to Christianity, they celebrated the beginning of the new year on what is now Christmas Day, the 25th December, in a festival called ‘Mother’s Night’:

In olden time the English people […] calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath. The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May, Thrimilchi; June, Litha; July, also Litha; August, Weodmonath; September, Halegmonath; October, Winterfilleth; November, Blodmonath; December, Giuli, the same name by which January is called. They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, ‘‘mother’s night’’, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night.1

At this time, the 25th December was the Winter Solstice in the Julian calendar. No other sources mention the festival of Mother’s Night, so little is known about what exactly it entailed. However, the process of the days beginning to get longer is an observable phenomenon, linked to astronomical cycles. It is easy to see how this would have been an obvious time to celebrate renewal.

The 25th December falls exactly nine months after the spring equinox, March 25th, which was understood to be the date of Christ’s conception - the Annunciation. To Bede, this link between the Christian calendar and the seasons made perfect sense:

…it was fitting that the Creator of eternal light should be conceived and born along with the increase of temporal light, and that the herald of penance, who must decrease, should be engendered and born at a time when the light is diminishing.2

In the Reckoning of Time, Bede’s calculations are based on the 1st January being the start of the year, as is consistent with the Julian calendar. However, it is easy to see how to a churchman like Bede, the yearly cycle of the celebration of the conception and birth of Christ, as well as other important liturgical feasts such as Easter, would have been much more important points in the year than the 1st January. To a churchman, the 1st January may have stood out more as the feast of Christ’s circumcision (eight days after Christmas) than the beginning of the year.

Bede is not consistent. He is most famous for writing another of his work, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, an account of the conversion of the English to Christianity. There has been over a century of complex debate among historians as to what calendar Bede is using in this book. Some argue that he is using a system based on the 24th September as the start of the year, while others have put forward evidence that he considers the 25th December the start of the year. It seems that there is inconsistency among his writings and even within one single work. Such inconsistencies make it very difficult for historians to determine exactly when events happened.

The so called ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicles’, too, use inconsistent dating. This is unsurprising given that they are comprised of disparate sets of annals produced over hundreds of years in varying locations. These annals primarily use the 1st January and the 25th December as their year beginnings - but some annals from the eleventh century use the date of the annunciation March 25, while some from the ninth century use 1st September, a date derived from a Roman system of taxation. Even more confusingly, the earliest annals in the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicles’ are adapted from Bede’s writings, whose own system eludes us. A historian simply cannot read an annal dated to a particular year and take for granted that the events mentioned all happened between the 1st January and 31st December that year.

The prolific tenth-century writer Ælfric of Eynsham wrote a sermon for 1st January, in which he expressed dismay at the arbitrary nature of that day as the beginning of the year:

We have often heard that men call this day the day of the year, as if this day were first in the circuit of the year; but we find no explanation in christian books, why this day is accounted the beginning of the year. The old Romans, in heathen days, begun the circuit of the year on this day; and the Hebrew nations on the vernal equinox; the Greeks on the summer solstice; and the Egyptians begun their year at harvest. Now our calendar begins, according to the Roman institution, on this day, not for any religious reason, but from old custom.3

Ælfric proposes an altogether different date, the 21st March, based on the contents of Genesis and the creation of the world:

The eighteenth day of the month that we call March, which ye call Hlyda, was the first day of this world. On that day God made light, and morning, and evening. Then three days went forth without any measure of times; for the heavenly bodies were not created before the fourth day. On the fourth day the Almighty fixed all the heavenly bodies, and the yearly seasons, and commanded that they should be for a sign, for days, and for years. Now the Hebrews begin their year on the day when all the seasons were appointed, that is on the fourth day of the world's creation, and the doctor Beda [Bede] reckons, with great discretion, that that day is the twenty-first of March, the day which we celebrate in honour of the holy man Benedict, for his great excellencies. Aye, the earth also makes known by her plants, which then return to life, that the time at which they were created is the most correct beginning of the year.4

Looking out of my window onto a gloomy, rainy midwinter day as I write this, I can’t help but agree with Ælfric’s last point here. The true cycle of nature resets itself in Spring - it is then I feel more aligned with the astronomical cycles of earth and the changing of the seasons.

In our modern world, we are more governed by clocks and calendars than ever before. We carry them around on our wrists and in our pockets. To most of us, the progress of the year is reflected most clearly in looming deadlines, diaries, a progressing number on our phone screen, or events written on a wall calendar.

In early medieval England, this was not so. Life was governed by the seasons, a cycle of sowing, growing, and harvesting, by which survival was ensured. The time of year would be most obviously reflected in the available produce, the heigh of the corn in the fields, the size of the growing lambs and calves, the various seasonal tasks in the home and garden that must be completed.

So too would people be very aware of the cycle of seasonal festivities. Not only the aforementioned liturgical feasts and fasts of the Christian church, but also festivities that reflected the changing of the seasons, the lengthening or shortening of days, phases of farm work completed.

Despite spending rather a lot of time deconstructing the very concept, I wish you all a very happy new year on this, the 1st January. I probably won’t remember to wish it again on the 21st or 25th March, the 1st or 24th September, or the 25th December.

I am so pleased to announce that my debut history book, Monarchia: A New History of the English Royal Dynasties, Through the Queens Who Built Them, is to be published by Allen Lane (Penguin) in the UK and Harper (HarperCollins) in the US!

I owe this incredible development partly to subscribers of Ælfgif-who?, especially those with paid subscriptions and those who have shared my work, followed me on social media, etc. I would not be in this position without your ongoing support - you have allowed me to forge a career in an arena that would have been otherwise completely inaccessible to me. To land deals with two fantastic editors at such prestigious publishers, to be provided with an even bigger platform to share what I am most fascinated by… I am truly so grateful.

I hope I can return the favour by writing a decent book! Writing is under way and I will of course let you know when it’s available to pre-order etc.

Check out the Official Press Release published by The Bookseller today:

Subscribe now

Allen Lane signs Florence Scott's fresh take on Medieval queenship

Allen Lane has signed Dr Florence Scott’s “bold and original” history of Medieval queenship, Monarchia: A New History of the English Royal Dynasties, Through the Queens Who Built Them.

Tom Penn, publishing director at Penguin Press, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Tom Killingbeck at AM Heath. Allen Lane dubbed the book “bold and original” and will publish it in spring 2027. North American rights were sold to Sarah Haugen at Harper.

Allen Lane said: "The propaganda of the earliest English monarchies has been woven into our national mythology, lingering even in our political system and public discourse. Alfred the Great, Cnut, Offa, Æthelred the Unready, Harold Godwinson, William the Conqueror – these famous kings cast long shadows over our very nationhood. But what of the queens who bore these early kings, who ruled beside them? What of Cynethryth, Judith, Ælfthryth or Emma? Why are these women, who were so central to royal power and so integral in the development of monarchy, not part of the myth?

"In Monarchia, Scott explores the role of queenship in the foundations of English monarchy. In telling the fascinating but forgotten stories of the queens who were instrumental in ruling the kingdoms of medieval England in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, Scott allows readers to look at familiar events like the Viking invasions and the Norman conquest through fresh eyes, showing us how queenship, monarchy, and English nationhood first coincided in the early Middle Ages."

Allen Lane continued: "At the very outset of the creation of England, queens became purveyors of divine legitimacy through their children, and sharers in rule inextricable from the larger project of manufacturing royal power. This idea of intergenerational magic conjured dynasties from nothing, and has sustained the British monarchy until the present day. Scott demonstrates through a treasure trove of stories and meticulous research that there has been a missing chapter in British history, and that by understanding this history, we can better understand how the power of the monarchy has endured."

Scott is a historian who was born in Goole, a port town in East Yorkshire, and now resides in York. They have recently completed a PhD thesis at the University of Leeds, entitled "Christian Queenship and Inauguration Rites in Early Medieval England". Scott is interested in the religious ideology that underpinned queenship in the earliest stages of English monarchy.

Scott publishes Ælfgif-who?, a popular Substack newsletter and podcast that illuminates the lives of women who lived in England between 500 and 1100 AD. They have appeared on BBC Woman’s Hour and History Hit’s Gone Medieval podcast, and written for numerous publications.

Scott said: “I am delighted to have found such a befitting home for Monarchia. From the first, Thomas Penn and his colleagues have understood and enabled my vision of Monarchia as a new and radical history of early Medieval English monarchy, through the crucial but hitherto underutilised lens of queenship. I am privileged to be able to share with readers such a history, that shakes the foundations of our conception of women in history, the development of the English nation and monarchy itself.”

Penn added: “Monarchia is a stunningly bold and original history: one that, in recovering an extraordinary cast of early medieval queens, casts fresh light on the political role of queenship itself. Leading us through the world of early medieval England, Florence Scott deploys a wealth of research with wit, wisdom and insight – and, in the process, upends what we think we know about the English monarchy. Florence is a major new voice, a wonderful writer, thinker and historian, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome them to Allen Lane.”

Subscribe now

Content note: This newsletter contains mentions of infant death and death in childbirth, as well as images of human remains.

The Oakington Women: A matriarchal medieval society

You may have seen a viral photograph making its rounds on social media, of a sixth-century medieval skeleton impaled on a large yellow pipe. The popularity of the image is down to its gruesome nature, the modern gas pipe having been bored right through the skull of the dead woman.

This image has cropped up a few times on my various feeds, and each time I wondered what is known about the life of this woman, aside from her recent viral fame. So I did some investigating. It turns out that the indignity afforded this unfortunate woman in death contrasts sharply with the dignity with which she was initially buried.

This woman, nicknamed ‘Piper’ by the University of Central Lancashire archaeologists who uncovered her in 2014, was buried in grave 116 in a sixth-century early medieval cemetery in Oakington, Cambridge. More interesting than the pipe, which was a pure accident of directional drilling, her grave was richly furnished. She had a brooch on each shoulder, wrist-clasps, and a large ornate cruciform brooch, indicating she had been buried in a peplos dress over a long-sleeved dress and wrapped in a pinned cloak. She also had a collection of glass and amber beads. These items in her grave indicate that she was a wealthy and important woman within her community at Oakington.

The more I researched this dig, which was overseen by archaeologists Dr Faye Simpson and Dr Duncan Sayer, the more the site was revealed to be a remarkable insight into early medieval gender and society. Piper was not the only high-status woman in the Oakington cemetery. In fact, there were a large number of furnished female burials, which acted as focal points throughout the cemetery, and very few male ones.

Duncan Sayer has called the Oakington dig suggestive of a ‘female-dominated matriarchal group’ in early medieval England. What’s more, around thirty percent of the 124 graves were those of infants. The high number of infant burials is disproportionate, indicating that women were in this area specifically to give birth within this matriarchal community.

During the past week there has been much excitement on social media and in the press about the findings of a recent DNA study, which provide evidence for matrilocal societies in Iron Age Dorset. Matrilocal societies are groups in which women stay within family groups, marrying outsiders, while male family members join different groups. Such societies would naturally revolve around generations of women. The Oakington site might provide a comparable example, though centuries later, of a similar kind of female-dominated group.

Subscribe now

As well as Piper, the Oakington site contains a number of other completely extraordinary burials. Grave 57 reveals another wealthy female burial comparable to that of Piper, nicknamed ‘Queeny’ by archeaologists. According to the project summary, her grave goods included ‘an iron purse ring, 21 amber beads, 4 glass beads, an iron knife, wrist clasps, belt strap fittings, a large cruciform brooch and two small long brooches’. But the grave also reveals something more precious and yet tragic - a collection of tiny, foetal bones within her pelvis. Archaeologists have speculated that the woman in Grave 57 died as a result of an obstructed childbirth, as the foetus was lodged low down and sideways in the pelvic area. In modern times such obstructions can be resolved by performing a C-section, but unfortunately for Queeny and her child, this complication was fatal in medieval England.

In another part of the site, archaeologists uncovered the furnished grave of a wealthy woman, buried in a mound beside a large mammal. Initially the animal was assumed to be a horse, an exciting find given that of the thirty-one previously discovered human-horse-burials, every one was a male warrior. However, excavators were surprised to find that the animal was in fact a cow. There are no comparable graves in all of Europe. Cuts at the cow’s ankles indicate that the animal had been skinned, and was included in the grave as a sacrifice. Given that a cow would have been an important source of food, this was a significant offering. The woman buried alongside the cow was buried with a full chatelaine - an iron girdle that would have held keys and other useful tools - another indication of her importance to the community.

Grave 109 is a triple grave containing three female skeletons of vastly different ages - one a girl who was under 3, one a young woman of around 18-25, and one a woman aged 25-30. One might expect that this was a familial grave, but DNA analysis reveals that these women and the girl were not related to each other in the first or even second degree. We can only assume that a joint cause of death, a tragedy that befell all three, led them to be buried within the same grave.

The genetic analysis of skeletons from Oakington in particular has led to some important revisions to how we understand the past. A common piece of rhetoric among racist commentators is that there is such thing as a common ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ancestry, a biologically-based ethnic group that established the religion and culture of early medieval England. However, the skeletons in sixth-century Oakington contradict and undermine this assertion - according to Duncan Sayer, the evidence shows that ‘the people of fifth- and sixth-century England had a mixed heritage and did not base their identity on a biological legacy’.

Four skeletons from Oakington were examined - according to Dr Sayer, ‘one of them was a match with the Iron Age genome, two were closest to modern Dutch genomes, and one was a hybrid of the two. Each of these burials was culturally Anglo-Saxon because they were buried in the same way in the same cemetery. In fact, the richest assemblage of Anglo-Saxon artifacts came from the individual with the match for Iron Age genetic ancestry, and so was not a migrant at all’.

These people did not understand themselves as ‘Anglo-Saxon’, nor was cultural identity based around ethnicity or genetics. They were all equally part of a diverse community. This evidence has led Dr Sayer to conclude that ‘Anglo-Saxon ancestry is a modern English myth—the English are not descended from one group of people but from many and that persists in our culture and in our genes’.

A stray gas pipe is truly the least compelling aspect of this cemetery. Archaeological digs such as the Oakington excavation can provide all sorts of rich information about the lives (and deaths) of people who lived in the past. The insights into early medieval English society provided by this dig richly furnish our understandings of how gender, ethnicity, and culture operated in this early period, a time when written documents are limited. Oakington especially provides insights into sixth-century birthing practices, a central concern in the lives of medieval women. While the image of a woman’s skeleton with a pipe through it is shocking on a surface level, it fails to communicate the real significance of this historical woman - a respected and high-status matriarch within her community.

Subscribe now

Further reading:

Duncan Sayer, ‘Ten Skeletons Bury a Right-Wing Talking Point’, Sapiens, 2018

Francine Russo, ‘Archeaologists uncover the real story of how England became England’, The Smithsonian, 2024

‘UCLan Students Discover Rare Find’, UCLan (Woman buried with cow)

‘Individual Encounters: capturing personal stories with ancient DNA’, The Past, 2022

Oakington Anglo-Saxon Cemetery - Mid-Project Summary 2010-2012

Since completing my thesis in July I’ve finally had the time and mental space to read simply because I want to, and not just because I’m desperately trying to finish an important project. Among the various classic novels, biographies and political non-fictions I’ve miraculously had the attention span to read, I’ve been delving into some fascinating history books.

Occasionally I read a history book that I think readers of Ælfgif-who? would be very tempted to pick up, due to the period it covers, the themes it explores, or the interesting women it aims to highlight. It makes good sense from here on to review these books on Substack.

The first book I’ll be reviewing is Oathbreakers, a new release from Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, authors of the 2021 medieval history bestseller The Bright Ages.

Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe (Harper, 2024) - Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry

ISBN: 9780063336674. Release: December 10 2024 (US), January 15 2025 (UK)

The towering figure of Charlemagne, with his vast and seemingly ever-expanding Carolingian Empire, dominates our understanding of early medieval European geopolitical power. But not long after the death of Charlemagne, his empire, now in the hands of his sons and grandsons, was in pieces. Oathbreakers explores this rise and crashing fall, highlighting the familial infighting and ultimate civil war that shattered the empire and altered the borders of Europe beyond recognition.

Oathbreakers begins with the rise to power of Charlemagne’s father Pepin the Short, a usurper, and goes on to recount an attempted coup against Charlemagne by his son Pepin the Hunchback. The authors then relate, with mounting tension, the difficulties encountered by Charlemagne’s son and imperial heir Louis the Pious, as he tried to retain authority while his powerful sons launched successive rebellions against him. The book’s historical narrative culminates in the unprecedented internal violence of the Battle of Fontenoy in 841, which took place a year after the death of Louis the Pious, in which three of his surviving sons (Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald) fought each other over the division of power. The fallout of this bloody battle precipitated the permanent fracture of their grandfather’s empire.

From the outset of Oathbreakers, it is clear that the power of the Carolingian Empire, whether waxing or waning, was always tied up with the success or failure of insurrections. The two stand-out themes of this history as told by Gabriele and Perry are the swearing and breaking of solemn oaths, and the persistent creation and re-creation of political ‘truths’, which the authors deftly contrast with actual facts. The authors do an excellent job of relaying the dramatic flair (and sometimes outright weirdness) of the contemporary partisan narrative sources, while remaining critical and objective about their reliability.

The analysis by the authors of historical events is somewhat repetitive in places - the unprecedented nature of the Battle of Fontenoy for example, in which Carolingian fought Carolingian as opposed to external threats, though an important point, is repeatedly asserted. However, as a fellow historian of the early middle ages, a period in which everyone had the same names, and complex events can come thick and fast with conflicting, fragmentary sources (or even worse, no surviving sources at all), I can see the advantage to such narrative breathers in which the historians can really hammer home the significance of certain twists and turns. Even as someone already familiar with the major players and events of the period under consideration, I found these breaks in pace both helpful and necessary.

Perhaps most interesting to the readers of Ælfgif-who?, the narrative of Oathbreakers is inclusive of many important and interesting women, whose centrality to early medieval politics is by no means glossed over, as is sadly too often the case with primarily political or military histories. Women such as the Byzantine Empress Irene, the first regnant female ruler in Byzantine and Roman History; the Empress Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious, accused of witchcraft while acting as a politician and advocating for her son Charles the Bald; and Dhuoda, Duchess of Septimania and author of the Liber Manualis, the only known surviving Carolingian text written by a woman, all cut interesting figures in the narrative. This is in no way a book for readers in pursuit of detailed portraits of these interesting women, but it might operate as a springboard for those who are itching to know more.

Oathbreakers is informative yet entertaining, with a subtle sense of humour that does not try so hard as to overwhelm the historical narrative (spot, for example, the hidden Rage Against the Machine reference). Ultimately, the triumph of this book is its ability to convey a narrative about extremely complex events that is neither inaccessible nor patronising. Gabriele and Perry explore the nuances of contemporary sources out loud rather than simply doing all the historical work behind the scenes and then telling a simplified story. In this way the authors build a sense of mutual trust between themselves and the reader - we see their expert analysis come to fruition in real time while feeling respected enough to be let in on the process.

Buy this book (US)

Pre-order this book (UK)

Let me know in the comments what you thought of Oathbreakers, and please suggest other books that you’d like me to review!

For those who celebrate Christmas, the nativity scene is a familiar image. The nativity scene has a number of symbolic parts that can be put together, give or take a few, and are instantly recognisable: a stable, a star, a woman holding a baby with a man beside her, shepherds, perhaps with lambs, three kings, a manger, a donkey and an ox. This image functions iconographically, in that the different parts can be represented very stylistically and still be recognisable. If you don’t believe me, just look up ‘minimalist nativity scenes’!

The nativity scene is probably one of the most common examples of Christian iconography in modern society, and serves as a useful frame of reference for understanding medieval religious art. The goal in drawing a nativity scene is to represent the figures and the story in a single image, not to create a photorealistic scene. This is how a lot of medieval art can be understood.

But the way the birth of Christ was represented in pre-Norman England is not the same as the way it is depicted now. The main difference is that ‘Nativity’ scenes now often depict the three Magi (also known as kings or wise men), even though in the Western Church calendar their arrival is celebrated with a feast separate from Christmas. This takes place on the 6th January and is known as Epiphany. Medieval iconography does not conflate these two events, but depicts them as two different scenes. Medieval images of Epiphany often show Christ as a young child rather than as a baby like at the Nativity, emphasising that time has taken place between these two important events. Medieval nativity scenes also don’t include the star, which is included only in Epiphany scenes.

The earliest image from England of either of these events is probably the Epiphany scene on front panel of the Franks Casket, which dates to around 700:

Read more

Gunhild: A Victim of Medieval Ethnic Cleansing?

Exploring the 1002 St Brice's Day Massacre of the Danes

On this day in 1002 King Æthelred ordered a massacre of all the Danes in England. This massacre, which took place on 13 November, known as St Brice’s Day, was just one instance of tensions between the Danes and the English that spilled over into violence. Vikings from Denmark had been ravaging England since the eighth century, and had recently set up camp in Normandy, a convenient base for raiding the English coast. The St Brice’s Day massacre was by no means the end to the Viking threat in England, in fact this may have been exacerbated by it. It is understood by some as a precipitating factor in the eventual conquest of England by the Danish kings Swein and Cnut that occurred in 1013-1016 - and connecting these two events is the memory of a brave and beautiful woman named Gunhild.

Subscribe now

You may have heard of the conquest of England that took place in 1066, when William the Conqueror defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. But fewer are familiar with the earlier conquest that took place in 1013, when the Danish king Swein and his son Cnut invaded England and subjected it to their rule. The result of this invasion was that their Danish royal dynasty ruled England from 1016 until 1042.

The twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury describes the conquest of England by the Danish king Swein as motivated by revenge. According to Malmesbury, Swein’s sister Gunhild had been brutally murdered in England along with other Danes, including her husband and son:

This woman, who possessed considerable beauty, had come over to England with her husband Pallig, a powerful nobleman, and by embracing Christianity, had made herself a pledge of the Danish peace. In his ill-fated fury, Edric [the earl of Mercia] had commanded her, though proclaiming that shedding her blood would bring great evil on the whole kingdom, to be beheaded with the other Danes. She bore her death with fortitude; and she neither turned pale at the moment, nor, when dead, and her blood exhausted, did she lose her beauty; her husband was murdered before her face, and her son, a youth of amiable disposition, was transfixed with four spears.1

Though he does not say so directly, the means of Gunhild’s gruesome death as outlined by Malmesbury resonate with what we understand happened during the St Brice’s Day Massacre in 1002.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, it was on this day that ‘the king ordered all the Danish men who were in England to be slain’. This was in response to repeated Viking raids in southern England. The true extent of the fatalities in King Æthelred’s attempt to eradicate the Danish is unknown, and has been much debated by historians. Some historians refer to the St Brice’s Day Massacre in terms of ethnic cleansing and genocide, while others portray it as an action taken only against violent Viking raiders who had recently settled in England.

A detailed account of the local impact of this massacre is corroborated in a 1004 charter from the church of St Frideswide, Oxford. The charter is written in first person as the king himself, and outlines the violence of the massacre, though Æthelred is more concerned with the damage done to the church itself:

For it is well known to all who dwell in this country, that I set out a decree, with the advice of my nobles and magnates, that all the Danes who had emerged in this island, sprouting like weeds among the wheat, should be killed by a most just judgement […] Those Danes who dwelt in the aforementioned town [Oxford], trying to escape death, broke through the doors and bolts and entered this temple of Christ, and resolved to make asylum there, and a defence for themselves against the people of the town and suburbs; but when all the people who were in pursuit of them were forced by necessity to drive them out and did not succeed, they set fire to the boards and burnt this church, as can be seen, along with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards I renovated it with God's help.2

An archaeological excavation at St John’s College Oxford in 2008 may reveal more about these grisly events. Thirty-seven skeletons dating to between 960 and 1020 were unearthed from a mass grave, mostly comprising of tall, strong young men aged 16-25. The injuries to the skeletons reveal a violent attack on all sides. One had been decapitated, while, perhaps more horrifyingly, several had suffered attempted decapitation. Osteoarchaeologist Ceri Falys concluded that these injuries were inflicted on the men as they were running away, undefended. Some of the skeletons even showed evidence of charring by fire.

Subscribe now

This is the gruesome archaeological legacy of the scapegoating of an immigrant group, and the extension of responsibility for specific crimes to everyone who shares the identity of the criminals – political phenomena that are unfortunately not particular to the eleventh century. The St Brice’s Day Massacre serves as a pertinent reminder that persecution on ethnic lines has a long history, but can shift and change according to differing political circumstances.

That this massacre comprised of horrific acts of violence that took place around the country on the same day, by order of the king, seems evident. But were Gunhild and her family among the unfortunate victims of this massacre in 1002?

Some historians have doubted Malmesbury’s testimony about Gunhild. It is only he, writing over a century after the fact, who claims that Swein even had a sister called Gunhild - nor do any other sources corroborate her death or that of her apparent husband Pallig. More confusing is Malmesbury’s mention of Edric as the man who ordered them to be put to death. This does not place her murder on St Brice’s Day in 1002, given that Edric was made Earl of Mercia several years after this.

It has been suggested that Malmesbury had his timeline mixed up, and is conflating the 1013 conquest with raids of England that Swein participated in a decade earlier, soon after the massacre. In his edition of Malmesbury’s chronicle, historian J. A. Giles commented that:

Malmesbury seems to have fallen into some confusion here. The murder of the Danes took place on St. Brice’s day, A.D. 1002, and accordingly we find Sweyn infesting England in 1003 and the following year: but this his second arrival took place, A.D. 1013: so that the avenging of the murder of his sister Gunhilda could hardly be the object of his present attack.3

I don’t know if J. A. Giles had any siblings, but I feel it’s reasonable that Swein would still be angry about the murder of his sister and her family eleven years later. And surely a full-scale conquest would require lengthy planning and preparation. But point taken: Malmesbury’s chronology is certainly confusing.

The main reason to dismiss Malmesbury’s testimony about Gunhild is that the events add up without the added dramatic flair of a brave and beautiful murdered sister. Monetary and political gain are reasons enough to explain Swein’s actions in conquering England, not least the mounting violence between Swein’s countrymen and the English. Thus, some political historians have doubted the existence of Gunhild as a later invention.

With no sources available to contradict the existence of Gunhild or her violent murder, we might keep an open mind. Malmesbury’s narrative, whether confused or truthful, is ultimately enlightening because it forces us to reckon with the fact that this massacre, though distant in time, involved real people. The idea that such a massive historical event might have hinged on a woman, on a bond between siblings, on personal revenge, perhaps feels unsatisfactory to those of us trained to look for political explanations over personal ones. But in ascribing names and characteristics to some of the victims, and showing them as defiant in the face of persecution, Malmesbury humanises the victims of historical violence.

Subscribe now

Dear subscribers,

Avid readers of Ælfgif-Who? will know that I submitted my thesis back in July. In September I had my examination, eight years to the day since I started, and my thesis was approved for the award of doctorate!

My thesis has been uploaded online and is available for anyone to read - this is really important to me as someone who believes information and education should be universally free to access. And also as someone who can’t shut up about my PhD.

No pressure, but this took eight years of my life to write and if nobody at least browses it I’ll be very sad.

Read my PhD thesis here

The title of my thesis is:

Christian Queenship and Inauguration Rites in Early Medieval England

It looks at evidence of early coronation ceremonies in order to get a sense of how a distinctly Christian form of queenship evolved in early medieval England.

Here’s a quick abstract:

This thesis is a study of the ideology of queenship and its conception as a Christian role in early medieval English inauguration rites. Its primary source materials are the two earliest surviving liturgical rites for the making of English queens: 1) the 856 Judith Ordo, and 2) the rite for a queen found in eight tenth- and eleventh-century English pontificals. This thesis foregrounds queenship as an analytical lens through which to study these rites.

The Judith Ordo belongs to a specific context, and thus an in-depth analysis of its specific context, contents and authorship is possible. By contrast, the queen’s rite that circulates in early English pontificals is general and circulated widely. Previous scholarship has understood this queen’s rite as part of the king’s rite with which it usually travels in manuscripts, terming these two rites ‘The Second English Ordo’. This Ordo has been analysed only to the extent that it can indicate for which king it was produced. This thesis instead focuses on the independent textual history of this queen’s rite, opening up possibilities that have hitherto not been considered, such as a wider date range and prospective place of origin. It argues that the queen’s rites in the Second English Ordo and the Frankish Erdmann Ordo are witnesses to the same text.

This thesis does not look for single turning points, instead presenting a range of contexts for developments in the inaugurations of queens through the ninth to the eleventh century, with some consideration of their possible antecedents. Though previous discussions of this material have prioritised Wessex and Francia, this thesis also makes a case for Mercian influence. It demonstrates what focusing on queenship and the independent textual history of the rites of queens can contribute to wider considerations of liturgical, ideological and political developments in this period.

On the eve of Blotmonath, the month of animal sacrifice

In northern Europe, Halloween occurs when the days are rapidly shortening, the first frosts harden the earth, and the trees undress to reveal their skeletons. But there have long been comparable celebrations at this time of year - in Ireland Samhain, in Wales Nos Calan Gaeaf, and in Scandinavia ‘Winter Nights’. These festivals, like many folk celebrations, occur at a time of transition. In early autumn, the hard work of the harvest season is over, and food is plentiful. But November ushers in the most deadly season, the coming Winter months when food will be scarcest and the nights coldest. For this reason, this time of year has taken on associations with evil spirits.

The origin of modern halloween is in the eve of the Christian feast of All Hallows, celebrated on 1 November, when Christian saints are commemorated. This feast has its origins in ninth-century England. It is often said that All Hallows was a Christian appropriation of earlier Celtic festivals of the dead. However, folklore historian Ronald Hutton has been careful to stress that there is no evidence that earlier Celtic celebrations had any association with the dead until Christianity’s involvement.

The earlier antecedent of this November festival is not concerned with the dead, so much as the act of killing. The eighth-century Northumbrian monk Bede tells us that to the pre-Christian English, November was known as ‘Blotmonath’, when the cattle were slaughtered and dedicated to the pagan gods.

The name comes from the Old English word ‘blot’, meaning sacrifice, and ‘monath’, the origin of the word month. There has been some confusion over this name, because of how similar ‘blot’ is to ‘blod’, the Old English word for blood. That has led to many mistakenly referring to this month as ‘Blood month’, which sounds suitably goth, but isn’t really accurate.

Bede gives us no other clues as to what this practice entailed, which gods were honoured with the sacrifice, and how exactly the animals were consecrated. As always, the Christian monk Bede is a tricky source on pre-Christian ritual, as interested as he was in condemning all non-Christian practice. Sadly, the people who he discusses did not leave behind written records.

One good indication that ritual animal sacrifice to pagan gods was indeed practiced is the attempts by Christians to suppress it. The Penitential of Theodore, a handbook associated with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, who was originally from Tarsus, states that ‘If a man sacrifices something trivial to the devils, he is to fast one year. If he sacrifices something substantial, he is to fast ten winters’.

The killing of animals in autumn was not only a religious sacrifice but a practical feature of medieval animal husbandry. The stocks of food that were available after harvest time had to last the whole winter - that meant feeding grain to animals was impractical. Following the fattening of the summer months, autumn was the perfect time to kill livestock to eat, rather than during the lean winter. Within households, this was a job that was often taken up by women.

(However, one archaeological site reveals an animal sacrifice where the animal was not eaten - rather it was left whole. December’s newsletter will look at various high-status women buried in a sixth-century cemetery in Oakington, Cambridgeshire - one of whom was laid to rest with a whole, skinned adult cow. The meaning of this is hard to ascertain given it is the only example of a cow buried with a human in Europe!)

Many of us in northern climes have lost our sense of the drama of this time in the agricultural year, with imported ingredients, long-life foods and greenhouse-grown crops now available throughout the winter months. Though we often complain that Halloween is, in its modern iteration, a rather commercial celebration, it is worth remembering that partaking in spooky seasonal festivities is as ancient a tradition as any. I should add the disclaimer that this is by no means an invitation to revive animal sacrifice!

Subscribe now

Further reading:

Ronald Hutton - Halloween? It’s more than trick or treat (The Guardian, 2014)

Ronald Hutton - Stations of the Sun (OUP, 1996)

Bede’s Reckoning of Time, translated by Faith Wallis

Two medievalists in Nazi Germany: The very different fates of Carl Erdmann and Percy Ernst Schramm

In the mid-twentieth century, Germany was a hotbed of academic research into the political history of medieval Europe. Carl Erdmann and Percy Ernst Schramm were both writing major works on medieval history during the years that the Nazis were in power in Germany. The ethical choices they respectively made would send them down divergent paths. While Erdmann’s academic career and life were both tragically cut short as a result of his opposition to the Nazis, Schramm forged a glittering career for himself within the upper echelons of the Third Reich.

Schramm’s work is so often cited and praised in my particular field - the study of royal liturgical rites - that I was surprised to learn, through Wikipedia no less, that he was a card-carrying, Nuremberg-testifying, Hitler-praising Nazi. While Erdmann faced the most severe consequences for his opposition to fascism, Schramm seems to have escaped any lasting consequences for his complicity.

Read more

Dear subscribers,

I am thrilled to let you know that last week I submitted my PhD thesis for examination. Thank you all so much for your support and patience - we got there in the end! The title of the thesis is:

Christian Queenship and Inauguration Rites in Early Medieval England

While I wait for my examination I’ll be working furiously on new Ælfgif-who? content. Let me know in the comments if you have suggestions of who / what / when you’d like to hear about - maybe a particular figure that I haven’t covered yet? Maybe a topic you’d love me to talk about in more detail? Someone whose story you’d like to revisit?

I also have some exciting post-PhD projects in the pipeline that I can’t say too much about yet… but I’m only getting busier, in the best way.

My thesis will be available online to read once it’s been examined. For now, if you’d like to know a little more about my PhD research, here’s my abstract:

This thesis is a study of the ideology of queenship and its conception as a Christian role in early medieval English inauguration rites. Its primary source materials are the two earliest surviving liturgical rites for the making of English queens: 1) the 856 Judith Ordo, and 2) the rite for a queen found in eight tenth- and eleventh-century English pontificals.

This thesis foregrounds queenship as an analytical lens through which to study these rites. The Judith Ordo belongs to a specific context, and thus an in-depth analysis of its specific context, contents and authorship is possible. By contrast, the queen’s rite that circulates in early English pontificals is general and circulated widely. Previous scholarship has understood this queen’s rite as part of the king’s rite with which it usually travels in manuscripts, terming these two rites ‘The Second English Ordo’. This Ordo has been analysed only to the extent that it can indicate for which king it was produced. This thesis instead focuses on the independent textual history of this queen’s rite, opening up possibilities that have hitherto not been considered, such as a wider date range and prospective place of origin. It argues that the queen’s rites in the Second English Ordo and the Frankish Erdmann Ordo are witnesses to the same text.

This thesis does not look for single turning points, instead presenting a range of contexts for developments in the inaugurations of queens through the ninth to the eleventh century, with some consideration of their possible antecedents. Though previous discussions of this material have prioritised Wessex and Francia, this thesis also makes a case for Mercian influence. It demonstrates what focusing on queenship and the independent textual history of the rites of queens can contribute to wider considerations of liturgical, ideological and political developments in this period.

Subscribe now

This is an off-theme post for me here on Ælfgif-who?, not about my usual medieval subjects, but about a woman who was important to me in a different way. Please stick with it. I’d like to explain why you haven’t heard from me in a little while.

Firstly, my PhD thesis, titled ‘Christian Queenship and Inauguration Rites in Early Medieval England’, is due to be submitted at the end of this month. Huzzah! After a long six years of research interrupted by chronic illness, a pandemic, and starting my own business to make ends meet (this very newsletter no less), the finish line is finally in sight. The last few months have been quite intense in terms of shaping my thesis into something that makes a genuine contribution, and preparing to submit. Apologies for neglecting the newsletter, but I promise it’s almost done!

But also during these last few months my grandma received a diagnosis of dementia, moved into a care home, and then became suddenly very ill. She passed away in June, age 94, and since then my life has been juggling the never-ending bureaucracy of a bereavement, funeral planning, and thesis writing. And trying to fit in processing this immense loss when I get the chance.

I willingly took on the job of writing my grandma’s eulogy and preparing the order of service for her funeral, considering myself highly qualified to do both as someone who writes life stories for a living, and whose research niche is the orders of service for royal ceremonies.

I am trained to piece together a glimmer of a life long ago, from often contradictory sources that are few and far between. I had all the necessary facts and dates of my grandma’s life, those that are so often frustratingly missing from the historical record for the women I research - birth date, marriage date, occupation, addresses, will, death certificate. Due to assisting with the bereavement admin, I had a whole documentary archive at my fingertips - bank accounts, national insurance number, pensions, utilities.

And yet, what has any of that stuff got to do with my grandma? My grandma hated dealing with forms and documents - ‘all stuff and nonsense’, she would have said.

There are indications of who she was, of course, and the decisions she made - who she married, where she lived. But no letter from the bank is ever going to reveal that her kitchen always inexplicably smelled of treacle and frying butter, even years after she stopped cooking. That she loved cracking jokes with a twinkle in her eye, right until the last days of her life. That she gesticulated with her hands whenever she described an object, as if she were touching it. That she pronounced poem like ‘poym’, and breakfast like ‘braykfust’.

How can the paper trail left behind someone ever reflect the intricacies, the richness, of a human life? When we think of our loved ones, it’s usually the small idiosyncrasies that come to mind. What makes a person themselves is so difficult to capture. To me, my grandma’s life is more represented by a tartan shortbread tin full of buttons than her death certificate.

Eulogising someone close to you as a historian is a humbling experience. I can no longer pretend that even with the most expansive archives (and as an early medieval historian, one can only dream about such things!), that we can get close to capturing the essence of real people.

And yet, this process has also highlighted how important it is to reflect on someone’s life, truthfully, and generously. To collect various people’s impressions of them. To write memories down, share them, record them, talk about them. Being a good historian is not just about tracing the past, that’s only half the job - it is also about preserving it, and acting as a responsible custodian.

I promise I will be back to writing about women who lived a thousand years ago shortly. But for now, it is an immense privilege to be tasked with commemorating 94 years of my grandmother’s life, and to be able to share glimmers of her life with thousands of you:

Today we say goodbye to Kathleen Scott, known to her many close friends as Kath. She was born in 1929 into a maritime family. Her father was a sailor, and she used to meet his boat as it arrived in the dock from France each week. Kath was educated at Grammar School where she enjoyed art and took part in the school’s production of Iolanthe. By all accounts she and her brother were a mischievous pair, once making gunpowder on their mother’s kitchen table!

Kath spent many idyllic childhood summers staying with her cousins at the railway station. On leaving school she worked as a telephone operator. Later she began courting her future husband, a bank clerk, and would travel up to Scotland to see him when he was in the Fleet Air Arm for National Service. They married at Parish Church in 1954 and moved into a new house near the river, where she lived for the next seventy years. Kath and Scottie often travelled around together to go dancing. Kath enjoyed art, ballet, theatre and music. She saw Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fontaine dance together in London and flung herself across the bonnet of Nureyev’s car when he left the theatre.

Kath trained to be a primary teacher in 1970, specialising in art, and flew to Paris and Amsterdam to visit the galleries with college. She taught in several schools where she had a post of responsibility for art, and is fondly remembered by her former pupils. When she was still in her forties, her husband sadly passed away. Kath continued to teach until she took retirement.

Kath spent her retirement painting, knitting, gardening and doing embroidery. Her work featured in several public exhibitions. She designed and painted Christmas cards for a local performing arts charity for disabled people. She enjoyed reading novels and poetry, especially W. B. Yeats. Kath was known by her family and friends as being fiercely independent. She took evening classes in pottery, woodwork, and car maintenance, and joined local groups dedicated to literature and music. She travelled the world, visiting New Zealand, South Africa, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, Greece, and Majorca. She went on a cruise around the Mediterranean on the Oriana. She loved walking in the Yorkshire Dales, Wolds and in the Lake district, and went hiking in the Welsh mountains aged 60.

Kath was a gregarious person and maintained many close friendships over the years, and for many decades she acted as the heart of her family, bringing us all together around her. Her house was often full of visitors, none of whom would be allowed to leave without having at least a cup of tea and several snacks. She was a loving grandmother and enjoyed nothing more than doting on her grandchildren. Her scones, flapjacks and apple pies shall never be surpassed. She adored cats and gave a loving home to many over the years.

Kath’s house was filled with many beautiful objects, paintings, and books, that reflected her varied interests and hobbies. On the shelf in her living room she had a beautiful bronze paperweight on display, inscribed with a quote from the absurdist philosopher Albert Camus – ‘In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer’. Though she faced many hardships including the premature losses of her husband and son, and a long battle with dementia, Kath retained an inspiring strength and self-determination until the end. She will be remembered by all who knew her for her devotion to a life well-lived.

Subscribe now

How 'English' is Saint George? The real history of England’s patron saint

Today is the feast of Saint George, England’s patron saint. The official flag of England represents his most recognised symbol, the Saint George’s Cross, a red cross on a white background. A martyr saint who is now best known for his dragon-slaying, George has also become symbolic of England, ‘Englishness’, and more malevolently, English nationalism. This is despite legends placing his birth in Asia Minor hundreds of years before the nation of England existed, and his cult’s original development around his tomb in Palestine. Instances of devotion to St George’s cult can be found in early medieval England, but his status as England’s patron saint did not begin to develop until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. So how ‘English’ is Saint George really?

The legend of Saint George has been developing for well over a thousand years, which means that, as is often the case, mythology and history have become intertwined. In terms of objective historical evidence, nothing is known of the real life of Saint George. Everything that has been surmised about his life and deeds has developed from a long tradition of conflicting accounts and outlandish legends.

Origins in the Levant

Tradition holds that it was on this date, 23rd April, in 303 AD, that George was martyred during Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He was apparently an officer in the Roman army, originally from Cappadocia in modern Turkey. The earliest known cult of devotion to Saint George developed in the sixth century in Lydda, Palestine, around his alleged tomb. Other sixth-century cults of Saint George were recorded in Jerusalem and Jericho (Palestine), Edessa and Constantinople (Turkey), and Bizani (Armenia), and his name is recorded in multiple inscriptions in Arabia and Syria. By the seventh century his cult was flourishing in the eastern Mediterranean: a Coptic church in Cairo (Egypt) was dedicated to St George, and the Archbishop of Crete composed a literary work in praise of him.

Cults of Saint George also developed further afield in this period - the first references to him in Frankish sources begin in the sixth century, as well as multiple church dedications - according to one seventh-century source, Queen Clothild, wife of Clovis, had a church built and dedicated to St George a century earlier. His cult travelled to the British Isles in this period, and the seventh-century bishop Adomnan of Iona reports miracles he performed at the site of his tomb in Lydda.

Tracing an English Saint George

His earliest appearance in an English source is in a martyrology by the eighth-century monk Bede, and it’s not until the tenth century when we find him again mentioned at Durham in a short prayer. But it is in works by Ælfric in the eleventh century that we first see attempts to Anglicise George, calling him an ‘ealdorman’ (an Old English term for a noble), and placing his origin in the ‘Shire of Cappadocia’. However, George does not make it into either of Ælfric’s volumes of saint’s lives written for the ‘English people’ - only one specifically for educating monks.1 Ælfric’s write-up of George’s life pre-dates any association with dragons, concentrating instead on his martyrdom.

Indeed, in the pre-conquest period Saint George was a martyr-saint among many, enjoying no special status in England. It was local martyr-saints and their equally local cults that flourished the strongest - Saint Oswald, Saint Edmund, and Saint Edward the Martyr to name a few - all of whom happen to be royal saints. The first saint to come close to ‘patron’ status in England was Edward the Confessor, a king whose cult flourished in the centuries after his death in 1066, not least due to his promotion by subsequent kings. Edward the Confessor was not a martyr, but due to his building of Westminster Abbey, and his queen Edith having a saint’s life written about him soon after his death, he had acquired a reputation for piety and chastity.

It was during the Crusades, the series of religious conquests undertaken by Christians aiming to expel Muslims and establish Christian dominance in the Holy Land, that George’s status as an army officer, and therefore a military saint, became particularly important. Some tales have emerged that link Saint George’s growing popularity to Crusader King Richard the Lionheart, but these are myths that originated in the Tudor period.2 Nevertheless, a book containing a Life of Saint George written by the Archbishop of Genoa in the 1260s soon circulated widely in England, and this popularised the story of Saint George slaying the Dragon, which had originally circulated in Georgia. George was no longer simply another Christian martyr, but had now become a symbol of both crusading and chivalry.

Unlike many exalted English saints, George was not a king. Nevertheless, it is through the monarchy that Saint George became an important figure in England. King Edward I used Saint George’s cross as an emblem for his army when he invaded Wales in the thirteenth century and subjected the Welsh to English overlordship. His grandson, Edward III, wishing to replicate his grandfather’s victories, also employed the emblem in his military exploits and on his naval ships during the Hundred Years War. In the 1340s he established the Order of the Garter, the highest chivalric honour, and made George its patron saint, outranking all other saints. In 1415, Saint George became associated with Henry V’s victory at the Battle of Agincourt. It was in this way that Saint George became synonymous with the military might of the English crown.

In terms of the veneration of George by the people, which was widespread, his association in the later medieval period was still less about Englishness or monarchy and more about dragons. Churches, hospitals and trade guilds were dedicated to George, with local processions on Saint George’s Day acting out his slaying of the dragon and rescue of a princess. It was this popular imagination of George, as well as his associations with military victory and chivalry, that ensured the survival of his legend post-reformation. As the English monarchy rejected Catholicism, the veneration of saints declined, but George, as a symbol, lived on.

The post-medieval Saint George

Since then, George has remained a symbol of England, though rising and falling in popularity as political circumstances changed. The revival of medievalist aesthetics mixed with the neo-chivalric Empire-building of the Victorian era resurrected George - so to speak - as a jingoistic nationalist figure. This continued into the First World War, when Saint George was used a symbol to recruit young men to the British Army. The prevailing relevance of George to propagandists was still the dragon - which could symbolise whichever ‘evil’ they wished to defeat. This is certainly far more persuasive an image than the reality of muddy trenches and death by machine gun.3

It is unsurprising that as a figure associated with crusading, empire, monarchy and British military victory, Saint George is the darling symbol of the far right in England. During the Second World War, British POWs who joined the SS named their unit The Legion of St George. The Neo-Nazi group League of St George, devoted to the racist ideals of Oswald Mosely, was founded in 1974. A poll conducted in 2012 revealed that a quarter of the English population see Saint George’s flag primarily as a symbol of racism. He is still a politically relevant figure, with the leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer repeatedly asserting his enthusiasm for St George’s Day and the English flag, and still being doubted in his patriotism by the right wing press this week.

So how English is Saint George?

Really, all we can be certain of about the real George is that he wasn’t English, and that he never set foot on English soil. The early history of his mythology asserts that he is from Turkey - his cult developed in Palestine, was fostered in the Levant, and he is considered a prophet by Muslims. He is not only the patron saint of England, but is also venerated in Georgia, Portugal, Aragon, Catalonia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Armenia, Greece, etc, etc, etc. But when it comes to this saint, the ‘facts’ are almost irrelevant - he is an entirely legendary figure, whose meaning and symbolism has been transformed by those who wished to use him. With no concrete historical reality to cling to, he can only be his associations. In that way, George is an English figure as much as he belongs to anyone. He’s a symbol of nationalism and racism as much as dragon-slaying and martyrdom.

That he can be claimed for anything and anyone is both the appeal and the danger with Saint George. And yet, it serves as a reminder that anyone trying to claim him for their own nefarious ends is only clinging to their own illusion.

Eostre: Pagan fertility goddess or complete fabrication?

It’s often said that the modern celebration of Easter is connected to an early medieval ritual about bunnies and eggs surrounding a pagan goddess called Eostre, which the English church stole and made Christian.

If you search the word Eostre on the internet out of curiosity, Google generates a ready explanation about who she is, right at the top of the search results:

‘Eostre is the pagan fertility goddess of humans and crops. The traditional colors of the festival are green, yellow and purple. The symbols used are hares and eggs, representing fertility (because we all know that bunnies breed like, well, rabbits) and new life.’

The explanation does not come from a particularly authoritative source, but from a staff writer at the St. Cloud Times, a small newspaper in Minnesota in the US. This article entitled ‘Traditions of Easter and cultural appropriation of Eostre’, that the Google algorithm has really decided to push for some unknown reason, makes a series of other claims about the ‘ancient’ mythology surrounding Eostre - that she mated with the solar God, that she is associated with dragons, and perhaps most controversially, that ‘Christianity should be embarrassed that it has needed to embellish its Easter tradition by appropriating pagan symbols and rituals for its own use.’1

The trouble with this article is that not a single one of these claims has any basis in historical evidence. Let’s explore what we can know about the mythology of Eostre, and her association with Easter.

To begin with, I’ll outline all the historical evidence about pre-Christian worship of the goddess Eostre: In his book The Reckoning of Time, the eighth-century historian Bede gives an explanation as to the names of each of the months. Bede tells us that Easter used to be called Paschal, after the Hebrew word for Passover, the Jewish feast that Easter was adapted from:

‘Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘Paschal month’, and which was once called after a goddess of [the English people] named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.’2

And well… that’s it! These two sentences by Bede are the sum of the historical evidence for the existence of the goddess Eostre. No mentions of eggs or bunnies, fertility or anything else. We need to take the Christian monk Bede’s word for it that he was au fait with pre-Christian practices to even believe that the month was named after the goddess Eostre and not something else entirely.

There are some reasons to trust Bede on this. Versions of the name Eostre were used among speakers of Germanic languages around this period and in the centuries after. Also, the Old English word ‘eastre’ shares features with words that refer to dawn goddesses in many other languages, such as the Hindu goddess Ushas, the Greek goddess Eos, and the Roman goddess Aurora.

However, there are other possible explanations. Ronald Hutton, expert in pre-Christian religion, argues that:

‘It is equally valid, however, to suggest that the Anglo-Saxon ‘Estor-monath’ simply meant ‘the month of opening’ or ‘the month of beginnings’, and that Bede mistakenly connected it with a goddess who either never existed at all, or was never associated with a particular season but merely, like Eos and Aurora, with the dawn itself.’3

Not only does being sceptical of Bede mean we can’t rely on the historicity of a goddess Eostre, but the idea that early medieval non-Christians even feasted during March and April is also uncertain. So much for Christianity appropriating a ‘Pagan’ festival then.

There is one further pressing question - where did all the ideas surrounding Eostre and her connection with eggs, bunnies, etc. come from, if not from the historical sources? This is more complicated.

In documents written between Bede and the nineteenth century there is no mention of Eostre. Then in 1835, Jacob Grimm (of fairytales fame) wrote about her in his book Deutsche Mythologie. Grimm connects Eostre with the Old High German word for the Easter festival, Ostara. He claims, with no evidential basis, that Ostara was a goddess, and that it is from her ancient feast that we get Easter eggs. Grimm was engaged in a nationalistic project to promote, and often manufacture, nationalistic German folk myths. Grimm’s goddess Ostara has since been treated as further evidence for Bede’s goddess Eostre, despite the fact that Ostara is made up based on the information provided by Bede!

Then, in 1853, a further fabrication muddied the waters. Alexander Hislop, a Scottish protestant, published an anti-Catholic tract that claimed, again baselessly, that the word Easter came from the ancient Mesopotamian fertility goddess Ishtar! This factoid often circulates online as a meme and has entered the public consciousness, despite being completely made up.

These two falsehoods have provided a springboard for much more postulating and mythmaking about Eostre, often coming from neopagan and new age sources, and leading to misunderstandings of history such as the myriad of strange information thrust at us by Google, courtesy of the St Cloud Times. Eostre has even since become associated with the ‘pre-Christian’ Easter bunny (or Easter hare), despite no such tradition appearing in recorded history until 1678!

So was Eostre a pagan fertility goddess or a complete fabrication?

Subscribe now

In terms of spiritual practice, there is no harm that I can see in creating a worship practice intuitively around different springtime traditions. There is no definitive reason to disbelieve Bede about the pre-Christian worship of a goddess Eostre, even if the evidence is tentative. If you feel like honouring Eostre at this time of year, that’s great!

Problems arise when baseless suppositions and fabrications are mistaken for historical facts. This can get messy, especially when the initiators of such fabrications have overt ethno-nationalist agendas, or when the falsehoods are used to sow division. Online images of Eostre overwhelmingly depict her as a human woman with pale skin and fair hair, and when taken together they present a racialised, almost aryan fantasy of this “Germanic goddess”. This depiction has nothing to do with pre-Christian beliefs, and such false ideas, especially when presented as having a historical basis, have the capacity for real harm. The truth of the matter is, we have very little historical evidence for pre-Christian practices.

Accusations of ‘cultural appropriation’ in this context, such as from the author of the St Cloud Times article, would be problematic even if they weren’t based on fabrication. ‘Cultural appropriation’ is a useful concept for describing the unacknowledged adoption of elements of a minority culture by a dominant culture. Are we to suppose that the minority culture that has been wronged here is pre-Christian Britons who lived over a thousand years ago? Or is it actually ancient Mesopotamians? Neither group currently exists to be wronged in such a way. It is a misuse of the term.

Of course I am not claiming that pre-Christian practices were not suppressed by Christian converts. But surely, the fact that so little is known of early medieval pre-Christian beliefs in England, and the fact that we have to turn to brief and untrustworthy Christian sources to try and understand these practices, reveals much more about the suppression of these customs by the church than the claim that a fake spring festival was the basis of modern Easter. Only through carefully surveying the evidence can we do true justice to the lost cultural practices of the past.

Subscribe now

Interested in more historical mythbusting? Read more:

Burginda: An early medieval English woman well-versed in African poetry

A copy of a woman’s letter survives in an eighth century manuscript in Boulogne. The Latin letter is addressed to an ‘illustrious young man’, though his name is not supplied, and is from a woman named Burginda - possibly a Latinisation of an English name Burgyth. She was probably writing in Bath, Somerset, in around 710.

Burginda’s letter is instructing the young man in his spiritual endeavours, and the contents of the (albeit short) letter reveal that she was highly educated and well-read. Written in a period that many still refer to erroneously as an intellectual ‘Dark Ages’, Burginda’s letter uses Greek words, utilises biblical exegesis, imitates Christian poetry like the fifth-century Psychomachia of Prudentius, and references both the sixth-century Italian poet Arator and the classical Roman poet Virgil. It also contains a reworking of a description of heaven found in a Latin poem from Africa that dates to c. 500. Burginda was clearly a very well-read intellectual.

This letter can be used as an example to refute many popular misconceptions about the early middle ages. The first misconception is that antique texts were neglected or unknown in this period. The second misconception is that medieval women were uneducated and unintellectual. The third misconception is that there was little or no intellectual transmission between Africa and Europe in this period. Burginda’s letter proves all these assumptions false. Not bad for two paragraphs of Latin.

Despite this, Burginda’s letter has not received much attention from historians, and when it has been looked at, the quality of her Latin comes under particular scrutiny. In his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Burginda, Patrick Sims-Williams comments that ‘Burginda herself should perhaps be located in Bath monastery: it is difficult to see why her poor letter would be copied far afield’, adding that ‘despite the weakness of its Latin, Burginda's letter is an important piece of early evidence for female education’. The text does indeed contain some grammatical errors, that Sims-Williams has drawn particular attention to in his writing on Burginda.

As the scholar who has written most about this letter, Sims-Williams deserves much credit for drawing attention to Burginda and to the breadth of her education. But I identify the comments on her Latin as part of a greater trend by historians, an implicit bias perhaps, to highlight the grammatical mistakes or the use of so-called ‘poor Latin’ in women’s writing. Men are given the benefit of the doubt much more frequently when they play fast and loose with the rules of Latin grammar. The idiosyncrasies of this letter could be due to the scribe, and not Burginda as author. As I argued in my newsletter on the eighth-century author Hugeburc, who has also been similarly scrutinised:

It is often assumed that the unconventional writing styles of some early female authors reflect a poor knowledge of Latin, rather than merely demonstrating a different approach to Latin composition or a different skill set.

Burginda’s Latin is neither remarkably good nor remarkably bad, and in analysing its quality to the extent of being dismissive we lose some of the emphasis on the sheer range and breadth of Burginda’s literary knowledge, and what it demonstrates to us about the early middle ages as a period of intellectual endeavour.

I end with Burginda’s letter in full (translation into English by Sims-Williams)

Illustrious young man, you are ignorant of the future, whether glorious Felicity might bring to you the delights of the world beneath the stars, or Misery spew from her bloody mouth: so strive with all your might that the bright light might shine for you in heaven and the health-giving breeze may blow for everlasting days and unchanging time, and you may reign over God’s remote places which are exceedingly blessed and rich in lands, in the serene heights of his abode. ‘Go alone holy and blessed’ is the single message proclaimed by all.

Receive in your soul what the Spirit, kindly coming twice, creates in our hearts as to keep the two commandments inscribed on the tablets of stone, ‘Love God with a fervent mind and be filled with love’ and again ‘May your neighbour be as dear to you as you yourself.’ Keep this whole law and always whenever you pour out your soul in your prayers to the living God on high and your eyes become soaked in tears, may the memory of my name, Burginda, merit your good deeds so that your prayers may deserve to be fulfilled.

An early medieval woman’s love poem

In 1931 a love poem was discovered on the back of an end leaf in an eleventh-century manuscript from Rochester, a copy of Ælfric’s Old English homilies. Medieval scribes charged with copying texts had to keep their goose feather quills sharp, and in this instance the scribe had used the end leaf of a manuscript to test their sharpened quill out before continuing. They wrote out a little verse, first in Latin, and then again in what appears to be Old Dutch with the influence of Old English. The poem reads as follows:

Habent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu quid expectamus nunc

Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu

All the birds have begun their nests

Except for me and you

What are we waiting for now?

The poem is brief, but the sentiment sweet and longing. It can be read either as a proposal: ‘shall we make a nest together then?’, or a lament: ‘why are we still apart?’. A thousand years after it was written down it still has the capacity to resonate with anyone who has been in love, making it the perfect subject for a Valentine’s Day newsletter.

What can we know about the person who composed these lines?

The manuscript likely came from a monastery, St Andrew’s Priory in Rochester (now Rochester Cathedral), and its discovery led historians to speculate about why a celibate monk might write such a poem. Kenneth Sisam, who discovered the poem in 1931, assumed that the verse was used to teach Latin in monastic schools. Moritz Schönfeld argued in 1933 that the poem was not about romantic love, but expressing a Flemish monk’s homesickness. In 1954, J M De Smet postulated that the poem was a monastic allegory - the birds are the monks, and the nest they are seeking is the spiritual home of the religious order.

These interpretations are rather unromantic, and largely unconvincing. A rose is a rose is a rose, and sometimes, a love poem is just a love poem. That doesn’t mean necessarily that this poem is evidence of a covert monastic love story - I may well idly jot down the words to ‘Baa baa black sheep’, but that doesn’t make me the composer of the rhyme, nor does it make me a shepherd. But someone must have composed this poem originally - who?

In 2005, historian Peter Dronke published a paper rethinking where this verse originated.1 He argued that it shares similarities with other love-longing Latin poems. Crucially, these poems were written in a feminine voice. One, from the mid-eleventh century, expresses sentiments of birds building their nests amongst flowering branches, while the narrator reveals her loneliness. The similarities are enough for Dronke to conclude that the poem from Rochester could belong to this genre, and also have a feminine perspective.

Dronke poses an explanation for why a woman’s poem in Old Dutch might appear in an English monastic manuscript. William I’s wife Matilda was Flemish, and in the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, many Flemish nobility settled in England. These nobles would place their young daughters in convents to be educated.

The Bishop of Rochester, Gundulf, appears to have been quite concerned about young women wanting to leave their convents to get married (i.e., make nests). He appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, who declared that any young girl who had not yet taken her vows, or any woman who took refuge in a monastery during the chaos of the Norman Conquest, had the king’s permission to leave.

And so, as Dronke argues, the monks from St Andrew’s in Rochester may well have been appointed to teach these young Flemish girls - there was certainly opportunity for this verse to travel among the nuns and the monks in Rochester. The monk who wrote the poem into the manuscript may well have been aware of other similar Latin verses expressing female loneliness.

Dronke’s argument provides a plausible - though by no means certain - context for the composition of this verse. Perhaps it expressed the loneliness of a young lovelorn Flemish nun, placed in an English convent by her parents for her own safety, but longing to marry her true love. Perhaps not, but I like this interpretation.

Æthelswith: The Mercian queen whose gold ring was unearthed by a Victorian ploughman

Florence H R Scott

In 1870, a man was ploughing a field in West Yorkshire, in the countryside between the towns of Aberford and Sherburn on Elmet. As his plough overturned a row of soil, he glanced a glimmer of gold. He halted his horses, and bent down to pick up the shiny object, freshly unearthed. It was a large, gold ring, with an intricate enamelled design of a lamb of God on the outside, and an inscription that read ‘EADELSVID REGNA’ on the inside. The ploughman took it home with him, and fixed it to his dog’s collar.

A few years later in 1873, the ring was sold to a jeweller in York, and identified as around a thousand years old. It was purchased by an archeologist and collector of antiquities called William Greenwell for £30 (around £2700 in today’s money). In 1897 this invaluable treasure was passed into the collections of the British Museum, where it remains to this day.

There is no record of how much the anonymous ploughman was compensated, nor if he even was aware of the provenance of what he had discovered - nevertheless it was due to his toil and his careful eye that this beautiful historical artefact resurfaced.

But what of the ring’s original owner? The interior inscription reveals that this ring once belonged to a Queen Æthelswith. Its age and the location in which it was found both strongly suggest that it belonged to the Æthelswith who was the sister of King Alfred, and married King Burgred of Mercia in 853.

Rings were associated with royalty in this period. A ring was bestowed upon the king and queen in near-contemporary coronation ceremonies. Another inscribed decorative ring has survived from this period, which belonged to Æthelswith’s father King Æthelwulf. These rings share similar designs, materials and artistic techniques.

However, it has been noted that Æthelswith’s ring is very large in diameter. It was likely not worn by the queen herself, but inscribed with her name and bestowed upon a loyal subject as a gift, or as a symbol of an official title or office.

That Æthelswith was the bestower of such gifts is consistent with the other things we know about her. In 868 she witnessed a West-Saxon charter, in which she made a grant of fifteen hides of her own land in Berkshire. She also witnessed all of her husband King Burgred’s charters. Though we only see glimpses of her influence, Æthelswith, like other Mercian queens before her, was a politician.

It is not known when this ring was lost by its wearer - it may have been lying in a West-Yorkshire field for a thousand years before it was discovered. But while the ring clearly remained in England, its bestower did not.

In 874, twenty one years after Æthelswith married Burgred, the royal couple were forced out of their kingdom by an encroaching Viking army. They fled together to safety in Rome. While Burgred died soon after they arrived, Æthelswith outlived him for another decade, which she spent in Italy.

Queen Æthelswith passed away in 888 in Pavia, and was laid to rest there. She may have been undertaking a pilgrimage when she died. Her body and the ring that she once bestowed were both buried underground a thousand miles apart. And they say medieval women didn’t travel…

Æthelburh of Kent: The Queen who Converted a Kingdom

Long term Ælfgif-who? readers might remember Queen Bertha, a Christian woman who travelled from Francia to Kent in the late sixth century to marry a non-Christian king, Æthelberht. We explored the possibility that it was Bertha’s influence that led to the eventual conversion of the king and the people of Kent to Christianity.

Recently, I was asked to be a guest on History Hit’s Gone Medieval podcast, to discuss another woman whose role in the conversion of an early English kingdom has gone rather unacknowledged: not Bertha, but her daughter, Æthelburh. Æthelburh had a similar story to that of her mother’s - raised a Christian, she married the ‘pagan’ Northumbrian King Edwin, who afterwards converted to his wife’s religion.

Listen to my Gone Medieval Podcast

According to our main source, the eighth-century Northumbrian monk and historian Bede, Æthelburh’s marriage to Edwin was brokered in around 725 by her brother, Eadbald, after he’d succeeded to his father’s throne. This was not a time when royal women could marry for love - they often functioned as one half of a political alliance between two kingdoms. I don’t think that this necessarily means we should view them as the passive pawns of their male relatives - though what say they had in these alliances may have been minimal. Rather, it might be more accurate to view them as diplomats, being sent to nearby kingdoms to maintain cordial relations between the two, and maintaining the interests of both kingdoms.

In the early seventh century when Æthelburh was born, huge political changes were taking place in the many kingdoms of early medieval England. Large kingdoms were emerging along the east coast of England, two of these being Kent in the south and Northumbria in the north. Despite their distance these kingdoms were linked by the sea. It would have probably taken only two days to travel the 300 mile journey between these kingdoms by boat, an estimate modelled on the ship uncovered in the Sutton Hoo excavation. Such a journey was likely undertaken by Æthelburh as she made her way to her betrothed.

Bede tells us that a condition of Æthelburh’s marriage to Edwin was that he would allow her to practice Christianity and that an Italian monk, Paulinus, would accompany her to Northumbria. Crucially, Edwin agreed that he would be open-minded about converting to Christianity himself. The marital conditions were very similar to those of Æthelburh’s parents, as Bertha also brought a priest with her, Luidhard, who served as the first missionary to Kent.

What Æthelburh’s faith meant to her is something that Bede doesn’t tell us about. He is interested in how kings were converted to the religion of their wives, especially when it involved Roman Christian monks like himself (read about Saint Hild and the Synod of Whitby if you want to understand the difference between Roman and Irish Christianity). But we can extrapolate from the evidence a little here - Æthelburh was obviously a practicing Christian if she needed a churchman to accompany her in order to administer sacred rituals.

Like her mother before her, Æthelburh’s marriage was of great concern to the Pope. Just as Pope Gregory had written to Bertha, Pope Boniface wrote to Æthelburh to express his wish that her husband Edwin would convert to Christianity, using scripture to outline his point. He told her that:

For it is written, 'They two shall be in one flesh.' How can it be said, that there is unity between you, if he continues a stranger to the brightness of your faith, by the interposition of dark and detestable error?

Boniface also quoted Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 7:14 ‘for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife’. The Pope’s message was clear - Edwin must convert in order to protect Æthelburh from being ‘defiled’ by her husband’s idolatry.

Subscribe now

Edwin did eventually convert, though according to Bede this was the doing of the missionary Paulinus. In Bede’s story of Edwin’s conversion, the king is persuaded to become Christian when Paulinus reveals a secret symbol to him, that was also shown to him when his life was saved years before in exile. Bede presents this revelation as a matter of personal spiritual realisation, and not, as perhaps was more likely to be the case, a matter of political consideration influenced by many factors - one of which being his wife and queen Æthelburh.

Conversion to Christianity was appealing to non-Christian English kings in this period - it was a prestigious religion that showed continuity with the Roman Empire. Goods from wealthy graves reflect a penchant for mediterranean and Byzantine wares around the time of conversion. Roman Christianity was elite fashion.

More than this though, willingness to convert seems to have been a condition of not only Edwin’s marriage to Æthelburh but also of the political alliance he made with Kent. Converting to another kingdom’s religion might be viewed as a subordinate act. In sending Æthelburh to marry Edwin, her brother may have entrusted in her a diplomatic task to ensure Northumbria’s compliance with Kent.

We can only guess at how Æthelburh may have carried out this task, or indeed followed Pope Boniface’s instructions to personally influence her husband’s decision. At the very least she served as a living example of a pious Christian worshipper within his own household.

Edwin’s conversion meant that his kingdom also converted, which may well have been an oppressive or violent process - but it was not irreversible. When Edwin was killed in battle in 633 the kingdom reverted to the previous religion. While Irish missionaries would continue to convert the Northumbrians, Æthelburh and Paulinus had to flee for their lives back to Kent.

There is some suggestion in a later source called the Kentish Royal Legend that at this point Æthelburh founded and built a mixed-gender monastery at Lyminge. This story has been doubted by some historians, mainly because that would make this the earliest royal monastery ever founded in England.1 A few decades later, it was absolutely the norm that retired queens would found and run their own double monasteries (a few notable examples on Ælfgif-who? being Hild, Eanswith and Æthelthyrth).

Like her mother Bertha, Æthelburh played a role in the conversion of a kingdom that may have been slightly downplayed by Bede, who was looking to really emphasise the role of churchmen. It is only reading between the lines of his narrative that we can acknowledge the roles of these early Christian queens as diplomats, politicians and converters, both within the royal household and beyond.

Subscribe now

Paid subscribers can find out more about the role of women in conversion here:

Data Destruction: What was lost in the Cotton library fire

There has been a lot of anxiety recently over on Twitter (or… X?) about the potential collapse of the platform, with many questioning whether the slow death of the website would mean that old data - expert commentary, the accounts of departed loved ones, responses to big moments in history - will be gone forever.

This discussion has got me thinking about moments of data destruction in history - catastrophic and irrevocable losses of historical documents and artefacts. There have been countless incidents in which libraries have been destroyed - from the infamous Library of Alexandria, to the shelling of the Strasbourg library and archaeological collections in 1870, to the burning and looting of the Iraq National Archive in 2003 during the US occupation, to the recent 2021 Table Mountain fire which gutted the University of Cape Town’s Special Collections library.

There is even a Wikipedia page devoted to the destruction of libraries, but my warning is to tread carefully, as even contemplating such historical losses, both accidental and deliberate, is every historian’s nightmare.

One such event is notorious among medievalists: the 1731 fire at the unfortunately named Ashburnham House, home to hundreds of invaluable medieval manuscripts once owned by the collector Sir Robert Cotton, as well as hundreds of manuscripts belonging to the Old Royal Library collections. This library contained some of the most iconic medieval books, including Beowulf, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Magna Carta.

In the small hours of the 23rd October, 1731, a wooden mantle above a stove caught fire in the room directly below the Cotton and Royal collections. The flames quickly crept up the wooden panelling and timber beams into the room above, creating a huge smoke that alerted the keeper of the collections, Dr Bentley, to the fire.

Read more

The first ever Ælfgif-who? newsletter was about one of my favourite lesser-known medieval queens: Cynethryth, who was the queen of the kingdom of Mercia and flourished in the period 770-98. Today’s Ælfgif-who? newsletter revisits Cynethryth’s story, after an exciting new discovery has changed the way we think about her and one of her contemporaries - Fastrada, the wife of Charlemagne.

Cynethryth was the wife of King Offa, and is a compelling figure, not least because we have dozens of surviving coins that contain her name and portrait. There are over fifty surviving coins from the mid-780s depicting Queen Cynethryth’s name and image. One side shows her face, while the other side reads ‘CYNETHRYTH REGIN[A] M[ERCIORUM]’, a Latin inscription meaning ‘Queen Cynethryth of Mercia’.

Cynethryth’s coins are important because they are unique - she is the earliest medieval queen to have her own coinage, and the only early medieval woman in western Europe to have her portrait on coins. These coins also contain the earliest portrait of any English queen.

I thought Cynethryth was the perfect figure to kick off the first edition of Ælfgif-who? back in March 2021. Powerful and influential in her lifetime, she left a uniquely important record of evidence for historians, and yet she has been all but forgotten, even among history enthusiasts:

Now, a new discovery has been made that sheds new light on the significance of Cynethryth and her coinage. Recently, the Centre Charlemagne, in Aachen, acquired a previously unknown type of Carolingian coin: one containing the name of Charlemagne’s third wife, Fastrada.

There are a number of interesting parallels between Cynethryth and Fastrada. They were both active in roughly the same period, though on different sides of the Channel. It has been well established by historians that their husbands, Offa and Charlemagne, had a close political relationship throughout their reigns.

Fastrada’s coin, dating to about a decade after Cynethryth’s coinage, is different in that it does not contain a portrait, only a name - but it does include the same title as Cynethryth’s, written in the same way - ‘REGIN[A]’, with the ‘A’ abbreviated. Numismatist (coin expert) Simon Coupland has argued very convincingly that Fastrada’s coin was directly inspired by Cynethryth’s. Not only does this underline Cynethryth’s importance, but it demonstrates that the direction of influence between Offa and Charlemagne in this period was not only travelling from Francia to Mercia, but vice-versa.

Historian Jinty Nelson has described Fastrada as having a ‘uniquely well-documented queenly career’, and as ‘politically important in her own right’, but she has also noted that many historical studies of Charlemagne simply leave her out.1 Prof Nelson has made much of the fact that Charlemagne clearly loved his wife Fastrada, addressing her as ‘our dear and very lovely wife the queen’ in a letter.

The discovery of Fastrada’s coinage further suggests that, like Cynethryth, she was able to share influence with her powerful husband. Most importantly, we can still view Cynethryth as a trailblazer, but this coin demonstrates that she was not simply an anomaly.

Dr Coupland’s article explaining why the discovery of this coin is groundbreaking has been published open-access, meaning that anyone can read it without a subscription or an academic affiliation. I strongly suggest taking advantage of this, not least for the fascinating discussion about the amount of forgeries and counterfeits of Carolingian coins that end up on eBay!

It is my hope that the attention devoted to the exciting recent discovery of this coin can further help to bring these two remarkable eighth-century queens, Cynethryth and Fastrada, out of obscurity and into the public eye.

Who is Bede? And what does he have to do with medieval women?

Today, 25th May, is the feast day of Saint Bede, and the 1288th anniversary of his death. Bede was a monk and historian in early medieval Northumbria, and his work The Ecclesiastical History of the English People is our most enlightening source on the process of early medieval Christianisation in England.

Sure he’s an important historical figure, but why is he featuring here, in a publication about women? Long term readers and listeners of Ælfgif-who? might be familiar with Bede, since he seems to crop up in many of these newsletters. This is because Bede was one of the most prolific writers in early medieval England, and it’s down to him that we know about many of the women who lived in that period. He mentions over forty women by name in his Ecclesiastical History alone. Their names, stories and legends would not have survived to us without him. He’s a vital source to historians of women, but a complicated one, and it has long been debated how we should understand his views, and where they might sit on the scale of feminist to misogynist.

Read more