What a find! So interesting to hear about an object connected to a person we can call by name and hear something of their story. Thank you for sharing 🥰
Thank you for making such an interesting post! I had been researching medieval women around this time and found so little real information, so stories like this shed a lot of light of what their lives were like.
Interesting that you ascribe this to a Mercian queen despite the fact that the place where it was found was well inside Northumbria, specifically in the former Brythonic kingdom of Elmet which had been conquered (or at least annexed) by Northumbria as early as 627. Granted the history of Northumbria is turbulent and poorly recorded during Burgred’s reign in Mercia, with the Northumbrian kingship changing multiple times. The arrival of the Great Heathen Army in 865 and their capture of York in 866 are further complicating factors. Do we know whether kings Osberht or Ælla, who were killed by the Danes at York, or Ecgberht I or Ricsige, who succeeded them had queens who might have been called Æthelswith? If so, could the ring have been hers not that of a Mercian queen?
Mercia to Rome. At least she was never cold in her old age. How did she fund her life in Rome?
What a find! So interesting to hear about an object connected to a person we can call by name and hear something of their story. Thank you for sharing 🥰
Thank you for making such an interesting post! I had been researching medieval women around this time and found so little real information, so stories like this shed a lot of light of what their lives were like.
Interesting that you ascribe this to a Mercian queen despite the fact that the place where it was found was well inside Northumbria, specifically in the former Brythonic kingdom of Elmet which had been conquered (or at least annexed) by Northumbria as early as 627. Granted the history of Northumbria is turbulent and poorly recorded during Burgred’s reign in Mercia, with the Northumbrian kingship changing multiple times. The arrival of the Great Heathen Army in 865 and their capture of York in 866 are further complicating factors. Do we know whether kings Osberht or Ælla, who were killed by the Danes at York, or Ecgberht I or Ricsige, who succeeded them had queens who might have been called Æthelswith? If so, could the ring have been hers not that of a Mercian queen?