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?
Hi John, thanks for your comment! The attribution to Æthelswith wife of Burgred was first made in 1873 - since then, no plausible alternative has been put forward.
I don't think the precise location of the find spot is as significant as you are arguing. I hope that this newsletter has demonstrated that people in the early middle ages were mobile - indeed, nothing is quite so portable as a ring. That a Mercian ring might have found its way to a location that is geographically only a few miles north of the Humber at some point during the thousand years since it was made is eminently plausible. It should also be noted that the bounds of kingdoms and the people within them were not fixed like those of modern nation states.
The main reason I would argue for Burgred's wife Æthelswith over a hypothetical Northumbrian queen is that there is no evidence there were any Northumbrian queens in this period, let alone one named Æthelswith. The designation 'regina' is consistent only with the status of Mercian queens in this period. That Æthelswith's father had a similar ring only compounds the attribution.
Applying Occam's Razor to the available evidence, Æthelswith is really the only sensible candidate.
Mercia to Rome. At least she was never cold in her old age. How did she fund her life in Rome?
Hi Paul! Most likely she lived in retirement as a member of a religious community
Ah yes of course. A Mercian Hildegaard of sorts.
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?
Hi John, thanks for your comment! The attribution to Æthelswith wife of Burgred was first made in 1873 - since then, no plausible alternative has been put forward.
I don't think the precise location of the find spot is as significant as you are arguing. I hope that this newsletter has demonstrated that people in the early middle ages were mobile - indeed, nothing is quite so portable as a ring. That a Mercian ring might have found its way to a location that is geographically only a few miles north of the Humber at some point during the thousand years since it was made is eminently plausible. It should also be noted that the bounds of kingdoms and the people within them were not fixed like those of modern nation states.
The main reason I would argue for Burgred's wife Æthelswith over a hypothetical Northumbrian queen is that there is no evidence there were any Northumbrian queens in this period, let alone one named Æthelswith. The designation 'regina' is consistent only with the status of Mercian queens in this period. That Æthelswith's father had a similar ring only compounds the attribution.
Applying Occam's Razor to the available evidence, Æthelswith is really the only sensible candidate.