ch 5

However, if on the one hand Æthelred and his advisers sought rapprochement with their enemies’ allies, they also took more proactive measures. It is probably around this time that a gathering of bishops ordained, inter alia, that the entire nation should fast before the feasts of Mary and the apostles and that the mass contra paganos (‘against the pagans’) should be sung each Wednesday at larger (or ‘minster’) churches.¹⁰ In early 1002 Æthelred and his counsellors also agreed to give the viking force a record tribute of 24,000 pounds on the condition that it cease its ‘evil-doing’ ( yfele). Leofsige of Essex, who had been appointed Byrhtnoth’s successor as ealdorman in 994, was entrusted with the arrangements. Though these went smoothly enough, soon thereafter the ealdorman became embroiled in a dispute with the high-reeve Æfic, whom he and his associates were found guilty of killing.¹¹ The root cause of this conflict is not stated, but it reveals something of the fault-lines within Æthelred’s kingdom. As we have noted, the king was remarkably restrained when it came to appointing ealdormen, often leaving long vacancies and using reeves and thegns in their stead (and perhaps to their detriment).¹² One imagines that this created tensions between ealdormen and such other functionaries and it is interesting to note that this was not Leofsige’s first clash with a reeve: seven years earlier he had come into conflict with Æthelwig of Oxford and Wynsige of Buckingham over the burial (on consecrated land) of two men who had been slain defending a thief (who by all rights should have been denied a church burial).13 Interestingly, in both cases the king backed his reeves: in 995 the decision of the two reeves to allow the men’s burial was upheld and in 1002 the lands of Leofsige and his associates were declared forfeit and the ealdorman was banished from the realm. Thereafter, his estates were sold off, perhaps in an attempt to recoup some of the recent costs of tribute.¹⁴ What happened to the Scandinavian forces thereafter is unclear; some probably returned home, but others may have tarried in England, perhaps even resuming their careers as mercenaries.¹⁵

While the truce established at this point may look like a continuation of earlier efforts to buy off the Scandinavian raiders, it was, in fact, the prelude to a rather more dramatic act. At the end of the main Chronicle-account for this year is included the following notice:

And in this year the king ordered all the Danish men who were in England to be slain; this was done on St Brice’s feast day, because it was made known to the king that they wanted treacherously to deprive (besyrwan) him and then all his counsellors of life and to possess this kingdom thereafter.¹⁶

This event, known as the Massacre of St Brice’s Day, has attracted much comment. Edward Augustus Freeman famously called it ‘not only a crime but a blunder’, while Sir Frank Stenton clearly had this in mind (along with the events of 1006) when he wrote of the king’s ‘acts of spasmodic violence’.17 Recent assessments have been more measured. It was already clear to Freeman that the massacre was directed not at the entire Scandinavian population of eastern England, but rather more recent settlers, perhaps the remnants of the mercenaries recruited in 994.¹⁸ Certainly, it is hard to imagine that those Scandinavians who had settled in the Danelaw over a century earlier could have been distinguished from their ‘English’ counterparts.¹⁹ All indications are therefore of a dramatic event, but something short of ethnic cleansing in the modern sense. That the massacre was not meant to target all those of Danish descent – and perhaps not even all Danes – is suggested by the fact that a few years later a ‘Dane’ called Toti is recorded receiving land at Beckley and Horton, not far from Oxford, where we know the massacre to have been implemented.²⁰ However, regardless of whether we wish to see this event as a triumph of late Anglo-Saxon administrative efficiency (as some have been inclined),²¹ it is certainly a sign of growing desperation; more measured solutions had failed, so extreme ones were now being trialled. The Chronicle’s allusion to accusations of treachery smacks of intrigue and the impression is that Æthelred’s court was becoming a place of rumour and secrecy. Indeed, that the king and his counsellors were willing to listen to such whispers may say something about their state of mind: after almost a decade of concerned effort they had failed to stem the flow of invaders, and it is understandable that they now started seeing enemies in their midst.

However, important as such concerns doubtless were, it would be wrong to view this event purely in terms of Realpolitik. It appears in a rather different light in a notice preserved in the charter of renewal issued to St Frideswide’s, Oxford, in 1004. Although the diploma does not survive in its original form, there is no reason to doubt its authenticity; the formulation is perfectly acceptable for the period and there is nothing suspicious about the transaction.²⁴ The diploma renews the charters of St Frideswide’s, which had been destroyed in the course of the massacre. It is worth quoting the relevant section in its entirety:

There is much of interest here. For a start, it is significant that the diploma concerns a foundation in Oxford, since Oxford does not lie within the Danelaw. The Danes living in the city – for which there is archaeological evidence 26 – must therefore have been recent settlers, either elements of the mercenary forces recruited in 994 and (possibly) 1002, or urban-dwelling merchants (perhaps both).²⁷ Still, the core details of this account accord well with that of the Chronicle: both claim that the attacks were directed at ‘all Danes’, but in both cases there are reasons to suspect a restricted application of the term. Though the charter does not mention the date of the attacks, it notes that this decision was taken not only by the king, but also his counsellors. Though it was normal for rulers to consult their leading advisers on important matters of state, this report serves as a salutary reminder that this was anything but a rash and impulsive decision. Indeed, it likely that figures such as Ælfric of Canterbury, Wulfstan of York (who had just been promoted to this new dignity) and Æthelmær of the western shires, not to mention the new queen (all of whom attest a diploma in favour of Abingdon around this time), had a hand in the decision.²⁸

Of particular interest is the manner in which the Danish settlement is described here. The draftsman alludes to the parable of the cockles (or tares) and the wheat (Matthew XIII.24–30), which likens the kingdom of heaven to the field of a man who has sown good seeds of wheat, only to discover that his enemies have planted cockles (a form of weed) amongst them. In order to prevent the cockles damaging the wheat, the man lets them grow unfettered, explaining that come harvest time he will separate the two, burning the cockles and storing the wheat. At the heart of this tale lies the problem of evil; the cockles represent sin, which shall be eliminated come the Last Judgement. Though the parable can be interpreted as a call for toleration, for letting sinners be, in the Middle Ages it was more often read as a cry to action, a stern warning about the danger posed by false belief (it is in this vein that Ælfric refers to it in his Catholic Homilies).29 Such religiously charged language suggests a view of the Danes as not so much a political and military threat as a moral one – they are the polluting (foreign) cockles amongst the pure (English) wheat. This religious zeal explains the manner in which the act is described: it is called a ‘most just extermination’ (iustissima exterminacio) and the draftsman shows little sympathy for the Danes who sought sanctuary within the Church of St Frideswide.³⁰ Indeed, there is no sign of censure for those who violated this sanctuary – on the contrary, they are said to have been ‘compelled by necessity’ (necessitate compulsus) to fulfil this command. In the end the Danes, like the cockles of the biblical parable, go up in smoke; the only pity would seem to be that so too did the church’s ornaments and archive. It is not surprising that this act should carry such religious undertones: disloyalty – the crime of which the Scandinavian mercenaries were apparently accused – involved a breach of faith (Latin: fides) and was thus both a sin and a crime.³¹ Given that this account was drawn up soon after the events, probably by someone with close ties to the court (perhaps a royal chaplain), such details may well take us into the thought world of the king himself. Indeed, if, as the Chronicle-report suggests, he and his advisers had begun to see enemies in their midst, then it is likely that such teachings about purity and pollution lay behind this.

Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the St Brice’s Day Massacre is that it may have left a mark in the archaeological record. Two important recent discoveries are of note here. The first is the mass burial of around fifty skeletons discovered at Ridgeway Hill, Dorset, by Oxford Archaeology in 2009 (Plate 9). The individuals, who are all male and almost all in their late teens to mid-twenties, were found piled carelessly in an Iron Age pit. Stable isotope analysis has established that at least thirty-one of them are likely to have come from Scandinavia and had lived there until shortly before they met their demise. This, along with the fact that the bones can be dated with relative certainty to between 970 and 1025 (and in all likelihood to 980 × 1020), has led scholars to associate them with Æthelred’s reign.32 This period saw a great deal of viking activity and Dorset was hit a number of times (982, 998 and possibly 1001), providing the obvious context for the burial. That the individuals are male and for the most part quite young fits well with the presumption that they came to England as raiders. The signs of trauma around the head and neck of most of the bones and the absence of characteristic signs of defensive wounds suggest that they met their death by execution. This would explain why the bodies were discarded carelessly on unconsecrated ground, as was common for criminals and non-Christians.³³ How they came to be executed is, of course, the million-pound question. It is conceivable that they were simply part of a raiding party which fell into enemy hands, as the site excavators suggest. Nonetheless, it is tempting to associate the find with the St Brice’s Day Massacre. Indeed, though the all-male composition of the group discouraged the excavators from drawing this conclusion, it might actually speak in its favour: as we have seen, there is reason to believe that the massacre targeted Danish mercenaries, some of whom may have first entered Æthelred’s employ in 1002.³⁴ Associating the burial with the massacre would also explain why the individuals, who were young men in good physical condition, did not put up much of a fight: if, as the Chronicle and the St Frideswide’s charter suggest, the Danes were taken off guard, then there might not have been much opportunity to put up a defence. The location of the burial also makes good sense within this context: the vikings had been most active around the south coast in previous years and this is probably where Æthelred’s mercenaries were stationed.³⁵ Ridgeway Hill itself occupies a strategic position above the coast, not far from the royal vill at Corfe (later a favoured castle of King John) and within sight of Portland to the south, the latter of which had seen viking activity in 982; either of these could conceivably have been a mercenary base.36

Equally intriguing, though no less elusive, is the evidence of a mass grave of at least thirty-four bodies discovered at St John’s College, Oxford, in 2008 and excavated by Thames Valley Archaeological Services (Plate 10).³⁷ There are a number of similarities between this find and the Ridgeway Hill burial: the individuals were all male and mostly aged between sixteen and twenty-five, and the bodies were found carelessly discarded in the ditch of a Neolithic henge monument just outside the boundaries of the early medieval town. All of the skeletons show signs of injuries inflicted around the time of death, most commonly multiple blade wounds to the back, and several show evidence of charring, indicating that they had been burned before deposition. No personal items were found with the bodies, apart from an iron belt buckle, suggesting that the victims were stripped of such objects before burial. There can be little doubt that we are dealing with another mass execution. Though the radiocarbon dates of many of the bones tested are too early for Æthelred’s reign, some match this period and there can be little doubt that all were deposited at the same time; a date in Æthelred’s reign is thus still conceivable, though an earlier one may be preferable. Stable isotope analysis suggests a coastal (possibly Scandinavian) origin for the men and a marine diet is known to have a distorting effect on carbon dates, making finds appear older than they are; it may be that this is what we are observing here (though such major variation would be rare indeed).³⁸ In short, these finds perhaps belong in an Æthelredian context, as the site excavators propose, though further investigation is needed. If a product of these years, a case can certainly be made for associating this burial too with the events of St Brice’s Day 1002. As at Ridgeway Hill, this would explain why a group of robust young men was executed without characteristic signs of self-defence. It would also explain why some of the bodies had been burnt before deposition: if these are indeed the remains of the Oxford-based Danes who sought refuge in St Frideswide’s, then we know from the charter of 1004 that they were driven out by fire. The fact that the victims seem to have been cut down in flight, rather than beheaded on the spot (as at Ridgeway Hill), fits this scenario: as the Scandinavians emerged from the church, they were apparently hacked down by those awaiting them.39 Whether in these cases we are dealing with mercenary (or raiding) forces is hard to be certain: there are few signs of prior injury on the bones at either the Oxford Henge or Ridgeway Hill sites, which might indicate that we are dealing with merchants; however, it may simply be that the individuals were at the start of their military career and yet to acquire such distinctive signs of their vocation. Whatever the case, the excavators’ verdict that this is indeed a product of the Massacre of St Brice’s Day should not be dismissed out of hand.⁴⁰

It is almost too tempting to associate these finds with St Brice’s Day 1002 and it is salutary to recall that many other events could have led to such executions; these were years in which conflict was not rare and emotions frequently ran high. Nevertheless, the similarities between the two sites (if they are indeed coeval) are sufficient that a global explanation is to be preferred. And in this respect they reveal precisely the sort of signature we might anticipate of the St Brice’s Day Massacre: mass graves of males of probable Scandinavian origin, whose remains have been consciously mishandled. In a sense, it does not matter whether these were products of 1002, or of similar tensions in the preceding or following years: they demonstrate what the Massacre of St Brice’s Day must have looked like on the ground. Indeed, what our understanding of this event may have lost in romanticism in recent interpretations, it has gained in the physicality of the remains unearthed in Oxford and Dorset. These serve as a reminder that, though this act may have been justified in the eyes of many, its victims were very real. As one of the excavators of the Ridgeway Hill site notes, it is likely that the execution was a matter of public spectacle: locals will have looked on (and perhaps even participated) and most of those killed would have had to witness their friends and associates being butchered before them.41 The scene at Oxford is if anything more brutal: men fleeing into a church, then being forced out by fire, only to be slaughtered by those lying in wait, egged on and assisted by the local townsfolk. Thus, even if restricted in scope, these attacks speak unmistakably of desperation and paranoia, both of which were to be very much in evidence in Æthelred’s later years. They show that the king was starting to chase shadows, and he was unlikely to stop there.

If the Massacre of St Brice’s Day was meant to alleviate the kingdom’s problems, it seems to have had if anything the reverse effect. In 1003–4 Swein Forkbeard returned, apparently for the first time in almost ten years, devastating the eastern coast of the kingdom. William of Malmesbury was later to connect the Danish king’s reappearance with the events of the previous year: he reports that amongst the victims of the massacre had been Swein’s sister, Gunhild, and her husband the powerful ‘jarl (comes) Palling’.⁴² Though historians have often taken William at face value, there are reasons for caution. He was heavily influenced here by the account of William of Jumièges, which itself was written from a very particular Norman perspective in the 1050s.⁴³ There is, moreover, no earlier evidence for the existence of a sister of Swein called Gunhild. With Palling we can make better headway: he could conceivably be the turncoat mentioned in the A-version of the Chronicle under 1001, though this would require us to presume that he had been allowed to rejoin the king’s forces after accepting tribute in 1002. All indications are that William of Malmesbury was struggling to make sense of difficult and disparate materials here and one should note that he also reports that this Palling was executed by Eadric Streona, who only seems to have risen to prominence some years later.⁴⁴

In the following year Swein directed his attention towards East Anglia, landing at Norwich, which he put to the torch before heading inland to Thetford. After sacking the town, he was confronted by a substantial force led by Ulfcytel, the local leader (probably reeve or high-reeve) and de facto ealdorman.⁵⁰ A fierce battle ensued in which the vikings emerged the victors, though not without sustaining substantial losses; the chronicler reports that they were later known to say ‘that they never met worse fighting amongst the English than that which Ulfcytel dealt them’ ( þæt hi næfre wyrsan handplegan on Angelcynne ne gemitton þonne Ulfcytel him to brohte). In the following year Swein returned to Denmark, but this brought little respite, as famine struck the realm (it is this which presumably occasioned Swein’s departure).51 To the beleaguered English it must have seemed as if they had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. This famine, which hit much of western Europe, was especially severe. Raoul Glaber, writing within Cluniac circles in Burgundy some thirty years later, reports that people were forced to eat not only the flesh of ‘unclean animals and reptiles’ (immdous animalius et reptilius) but also men, women and children, bearing eloquent witness to the scars left by this event.⁵²

What the size of this document already suggests is confirmed by its wording: like its Abingdon predecessor, it is in a number of respects extraordinary, bearing witness to the politically charged atmosphere at court in the mid-1000s. It opens with a meditation on the ills which the English are enduring and the decisions taken by the king and his counsellors to avert them. Æthelred explains that he has decreed that God’s wrath, which has come upon the nation ‘more than is usual’ ( plus solito), should now be assuaged ‘by the continuous display of good works’ (continua bonorum operum exhibitione). He notes that this has become necessary because ‘in our times we suffer the fires of wars and the pillaging of our wealth, and also from the cruellest plundering of the ravaging barbarian host, the manifold tribulation of pagan peoples, and of those reducing us almost to destruction’, from which ‘we discern that we live in dangerous times’.⁵⁷ It is rare for charters to refer to contemporary events directly, even in these fateful years, and thus, as with the restitutions of the 990s, we have a privileged view into the king’s thought world.⁵⁸ The last line of this passage – explaining that the viking attacks are signs that the English are living in the ‘dangerous times’ (tempora periculosa) which according to the Bible will precede the end of time (II Timothy III.1) – introduces an apocalyptic tone which is then maintained as the charter continues. Æthelred (or the draftsman, acting in his name) goes on to state that it is most fitting that those ‘upon whom the ends of the world are come’ (in quos fines seculorum deuenerunt : I Corinthians X.11) should now examine themselves, thinking about how their souls are destined to live not only in this world but also the next. The same biblical line had been used in the charter issued upon the reform of Sherborne in 998, suggesting an association between this act and Æthelred’s earlier reforming efforts.59 However, it is not just the proximity of the end which is emphasized here; the second half of this phrase goes on to offer the English guidance as to how they should respond to earthly transience: since they are come unto the ends of the ages, they must consider the fate of their souls. The rest of the preamble develops this line of thought, noting the fleeting nature of earthly riches before going on to cite Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy to the effect that all human action is dependent on two factors, the will and the power, in the absence of which it is impossible to perform any task. Written by the late Roman senator Boethius (d. 524) while awaiting execution, the Consolation of Philosophy was one of the most influential philosophical works of the Middle Ages, which was often turned to for comfort by those in adversity. This work was well known in later Anglo-Saxon England and had been translated into the vernacular in the late ninth or early tenth century, perhaps by Alfred the Great.⁶⁰ Though the line in question had been cited in earlier diplomas,⁶¹ the quotation here is considerably longer than those seen previously and it is tempting to conclude that Æthelred and his advisers had direct recourse to Boethius’s wisdom in their hour of need; certainly, someone with close connections to the court did.

This phrase sets the tone for the main dispositive section of the charter, which covers the core legal details of the foundation. This maintains the Boethian theme, stating that since Æthelred has both the will and the power (implied: to do good), he has seen fit to have the following transaction recorded for future generations. He then explains that, at Æthelmær’s request, he has conceded the following privilege to Eynsham. The endowment is described as comprising an estate of thirty hides which Æthelmær had received from his son-in-law ( gener) in exchange for lands elsewhere.62 Stipulations are then set for the future of the foundation: the king announces that the monks are to conduct their lives in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict and that Æthelmær himself is to live amongst them ‘in the guise of a father’ ( patris uice). Æthelred further notes that Æthelmær has appointed an abbot (unnamed, but Ælfric the homilist is intended) after whom successors are to be chosen from amongst the monks by free election in consultation with the king. Finally, Æthelred charges himself with overseeing the abbey to the exclusion of any other secular authority. These stipulations are, for the most part, what one would expect for a reformed monastic house, and it is not surprising that the final lines about abbatial election and preventing secular domination echo the Benedictine Rule and the Regularis concordia.⁶³ The rest of the dispositive section then gives a potted history of the abbey’s estates, ending with a statement to the effect that Eynsham will be free from all secular burdens save those required of all the land (military service, bridgework and fortress-work). There follows a blessing on those who support the foundation and a curse on any who undermine it, after which the bounds of the endowment are given.

It is important to emphasize these religious undertones, because this act has hitherto been interpreted in political terms, as a product of the machinations of Eadric Streona. This is not to say that Eadric was not involved. According to John of Worcester, the Mercian magnate was responsible for Ælfhelm’s death, and though this report has a whiff of the legendary to it (John has the ealdorman killed while out hunting, a common literary and folkloric motif), Eadric’s involvement can be inferred on other grounds.72 Thus, in the first diploma issued after this event Eadric moves to first place amongst the thegns, leapfrogging many more senior figures in the process. One year later he was appointed ealdorman and attests his first charter in this role in second place (above Leofwine, who was considerably his senior). In subsequent years his star rose further: he married one of the king’s daughters, Eadgyth (Edith), and in 1012 he moves to first amongst the ealdormen, a position he would enjoy till Æthelred’s death.⁷³ Eadric’s relatives also benefited from his rise. John of Worcester lists six of his brothers by name, many of whom can be identified amongst the upper echelons of the thegns in these years, including Æthelweard, Æthelwine, Brihtric and Æthelmær.⁷⁴ There can, in short, be little doubt that Eadric and his associates were the main beneficiaries of these developments, and further light is shed on them by the regional power constellations at play. As Charles Insley notes, Eadric’s power base lay in the north-west Midlands, not far from that of the family of Ælfhelm, which was eclipsed at this point; we are, therefore, not simply witnessing a change in court factions, but also a struggle for dominance in the northern Midlands.⁷⁵ Indeed, Ælfhelm’s brother, Wulfric Spot, died only a few years before these events (1002 × 1004), around the same time that Eadric first appears as thegn (1002); one wonders if the latter’s death helped pave the way for Eadric’s initial rise.⁷⁶

Much has been made of Eadric’s union with a royal daughter, as previously the preference seems to have been to avoid such alliances with the aristocracy, reserving royal blood to a select few by marrying princesses off to foreign rulers or placing them in dynastic nunneries such as Wilton and Shaftesbury; like Æthelred’s marriage to Emma, this would seem to break all the rules. However, if this was indeed a special honour (and in some sense it surely was), Eadric was not alone in enjoying it: Uhtred of Northumbria married another royal daughter, Ælfgifu, during these years, and one of the leaders who fell at Ringmere in 1010 is reported to have been the king’s son-in-law (or brother-in-law) and thus also a royal relative by marriage.77 One might see these matches as a sign of weakness, an indication that whereas previous rulers had been able to command respect, Æthelred now had to buy it, but it is doubtful whether matters were so simple. Medieval rulers always had to work with their leading aristocrats and concessions such as marriage into the royal family could be as much a sign of successful politicking as decaying authority. The Ottonian rulers of Germany frequently married daughters off to leading local magnates, apparently without any ill effects; perhaps Æthelred was taking a leaf out of their book. In any case, it would be dangerous to make too much of the novelty of this: with the exception of Æthelstan’s sisters in the 920s and 930s and Edgar’s sainted daughter Edith in the 960s, we are not informed about the marriage patterns of any royal daughters before this point. It is, therefore, possible that such practices had long been the norm. Indeed, we know that most ealdormen of the tenth century were related to the king in some way or another and it is hard to imagine all of these connections being achieved through collateral branches of the royal family.⁷⁸

While we can only speculate as to the West Country thegn’s feelings, we can trace those of his new foundation’s abbot, Ælfric, in some detail. Already at Cerne Æthelmær had been one of Ælfric’s most important patrons and one imagines that living together at Eynsham would only have strengthened this bond. It is, therefore, interesting to note that the tone of Ælfric’s writings becomes distinctly darker during his Eynsham years. This is already clear in his ‘Letter to the Monks at Eynsham’ (c. 1005), designed to set the tone for monastic life at the centre. Much of this is an adaptation of the Regularis concordia; however, while the latter had allowed the king substantial powers of oversight over monastic foundations, in the ‘Letter’ these are significantly curtailed. What is more, Ælfric specifies that the king should exercise what powers he possesses ‘for the protection of the place, not the exercise of tyranny’ (ad munimen loci, non ad tirannidem), a line which finds no equivalent in the Concordia and seems to anticipate a strained relationship between monarch and religious house. Interestingly, this distinctive phrase appears not only in the ‘Letter’, but also in the Eynsham foundation charter (whence it is apparently drawn); one wonders whether the long arm of Ælfric was at work here.⁸⁴ In any case, this is not the only sign of the homilist’s darkening mood. In his Second Homily on the Feast of a Confessor (c. 1006 × 1012), Ælfric goes off on something of a tangent, providing a striking list of biblical figures who suffered divine vengeance for their ills, an aside which may betray deeper concerns on the part of the author.⁸⁵ The prolific homilist similarly ends his work ‘On the Old and New Testaments’ (c. 1005 × 1012) by recounting the punishments meted out on the Jews for their treatment of Christ: the siege of Jerusalem, the ensuing famine and the fate of the children taken into captivity thereafter – all events with potential contemporary resonances.86 It is also during these years that Ælfric undertook a number of significant revisions to his Catholic Homilies, including the addition of a lengthy passage to the homily on the Second Sunday after Easter, in which he inveighs against wicked counsellors who lead others astray, noting the internecine conflict which results. Robert Upchurch suggests that this was intended to be preached before the king and his senior advisers and, whatever the precise purpose, it is hard not to see herein dark allusions to the circumstances surrounding Eadric’s rise.⁸⁷ Ælfric also added a section to his homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (c. 1005) telling the tale of Theodosius I’s penance for the massacre of Thessalonica. This may represent an oblique critique of the St Brice’s Day Massacre, as Mary Clayton suggests; however, it may simply be a meditation on the penitential brand of rulership which Æthelred had embraced so energetically since the 990s (certainly, it is hard to see Theodosius, who was celebrated as one of the great Christian rulers of antiquity, as a bad role model).⁸⁸ Indeed, while Ælfric clearly cared more about contemporary politics than scholars once thought, there is no mistaking the detached and at times downright ambiguous nature of his allusions to contemporary events. Given the context in which he was writing, one wonders if this reflects the feelings of his patron Æthelmær (or at least elements thereof): increasing concern, but expressed in restrained terms, suggestive of a residual attachment to the king and his regime. If so, this ambivalence may go some way towards explaining why in his later years Æthelred reconciled himself with Æthelmær, promoting him to his father’s office of ealdorman in the south-west.⁸⁹

The years between 1006 and 1009 can be seen as ones of rising crisis, a period in which Æthelred tried to develop the programme presented in the Eynsham charter, but struggled in the face of mounting external opposition. Already 1006 saw the resumption of Scandinavian activity with the arrival in midsummer – hot on the heels of the famine, it must have seemed – of what the chronicler calls ‘the great fleet’ (se micel flota).90 This force was probably composed for the most part of bands previously active in the British Isles, but it clearly posed a new kind of threat. The army ravaged Sandwich and in response the ‘entire nation of Wessex and Mercia’ (ealne þeodscipe of Wesseaxum 7 of Myrcnum) was called up, the first reference to a response on a national scale. Despite the large call-out, the English were able to make little headway, however, and the chronicler laments the damage suffered by the countryside not only from the foreign invader, but also from its notional defenders. As always, such rhetoric must be taken with a pinch of salt; nevertheless, we should not doubt that supporting such a large force was indeed a real strain on resources.⁹¹ As winter began to approach the English army disbanded and the Scandinavians withdrew to the Isle of Wight, a site which the chronicler sardonically refers to as a friðstol (‘a place of sanctuary’), thus likening the security enjoyed by the raiders there to that offered to the Christian faithful by consecrated churches. As Christmas approached they made a further foray, however, riding out through Hampshire to Reading in Berkshire, then proceeding to raze Wallingford before overnighting at Cholsey (the fate of the monastery is unknown). The chronicler underlines the bitter irony of these events, speaking of these ravages in terms of the lighting of beacons; the fires of the towns put to the torch are thus compared to the defence mechanisms which were meant to provide succour and early warning to the English. The next day the force travelled west to Cuckhamsley Barrow (Scutchamer Knob) in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) where it stopped and waited. This was a taunting gesture, since it had been said that if the vikings (or perhaps any foreign invader – it is not entirely clear in context) made it to this site, they would not make it back to the sea again.92 Cuckhamsley itself was a place of some importance: the barrow remains a prominent local landmark and it seems to have served as the meeting place of the local shire (Plate 11). There was also a deeper significance to this site: its name, literally ‘the barrow of Cwichelm’ (Old English: Cwicelmeshlaew), indicates that it was thought to house the earlier West Saxon king of this name (d. 636).⁹³ This was, therefore, a location of great symbolic significance to the English polity and its West Saxon rulers; by occupying it the vikings underlined their dominance over them. On their return, the raiders met with the main English army, which they put to flight at the River Kennet (near Reading) before marching back out to sea past the gates of Winchester, the traditional centre of West Saxon royal authority (and the resting place of many of Æthelred’s ancestors).⁹⁴

That such measures were deemed necessary speaks volumes about the scale of the viking threat; that they were conceivable shows that the king remained firmly in control of the situation. It is perhaps not surprising that in these years we start to have a clearer idea of the impact of the Scandinavian raids on English society. In a charter in favour of St Albans in 1005 we are informed that the king had recently given the abbot three estates in exchange for 200 pounds of gold and silver, used to pay off the Danes (though the largest of these estates was subsequently redeemed). Such arrangements were probably common: tribute payments had been growing steadily for some time and it must often have been difficult to raise the requisite funds.¹⁰² In this case, it would seem that Æthelred resorted to selling off lands and rights in exchange for quick cash. Such a policy might work well as a short-term expedient, but risked undermining royal landholding in the long run, a fact which may explain the later reversion of the lion’s share of these lands to the king: as the charter makes clear, these were intended as a surety or pledge, a guarantee on a loan, which the king might later redeem. It is likely that other charters issued in return for movable wealth were inspired by similar considerations, even though this is not always stated. Thus, Simon Keynes notes that five diplomas of 1002 mention that a sum has been given in return for the grant (the first of Æthelred’s charters to do so), a development which he plausibly associates with the payment of 24,000 pounds’ tribute in this year.¹⁰³ Similar trends can be observed following the tribute of 1007. In this year Æthelred granted his reeve Ælfgar an estate at Waltham St Lawrence (Berks.) in exchange for 300 mancuses of gold and silver, while in another document of 1007 he confirmed an earlier grant to St Albans of lands forfeited by Ealdorman Leofsige of Essex in return for an unspecified sum (though it is unclear precisely when this was paid).104 A year later the king is reported as having donated nineteen hides to Ely in return for nine pounds of purest gold ‘according to the great measure of the Northmen’ (iuxta magnum pondus Normannorum), a rather allusive reference which may indicate that the sums were intended for use as tribute.¹⁰⁵ It is also around this time (1006 × 1011) that we hear of the king granting six hides of land to a Dane (!) called Toti in exchange for ‘a payment of one pound of silver in purest gold’ (unius libre argenti appensionem de auro purissimo).¹⁰⁶ Though it had long been customary to give sums in exchange for privileges,¹⁰⁷ it is hard to escape the impression that many of these transactions were made with an eye to filling royal coffers in the face of demands for tribute. The burden of raising these funds did not fall on the king alone, however, and there are indications that similar measures were taken by other leading magnates. Already in 994 we hear of Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury selling an estate to his colleague Æscwig of Dorchester in order to raise money to pay off the vikings (a policy which Sigeric had been instrumental in introducing, it should be recalled), while in his will Ælfric of Canterbury (1002 × 1005) forgives the people of Middlesex and Surrey the money which he had paid on their behalf, presumably in the form of tribute levies.¹⁰⁸ We can be sure that such cases represent but the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.

These documents raise broader questions regarding the collection of taxation and tribute. There has been much debate as to whether the figures given for these in the Chronicle can be trusted and, if so, how such sums were raised. Neither of these questions is easily answered. We have noted the tendentiousness of the Chronicle-account at a number of points, and it has been suggested that the tribute figures given are a further means by which its anonymous author sought to paint his picture of catastrophe and collapse.109 He would not be the first medieval chronicler to exaggerate numbers for dramatic effect and there is, it must be acknowledged, a certain suspicious symmetry to the incremental increase in payments from year to year. Nevertheless, there are numerous reasons for thinking that these figures are at least broadly reliable. For a start, the chronicler does not place particular emphasis on these numbers, as we might expect had they been part of his literary ploy. More to the point, in at least one case we have a degree of external confirmation in the form of Æthelred’s treaty with Olaf, Jósteinn and Guthmund; though, as we have seen, the treaty gives a higher figure of tribute than that recorded in the Chronicle (22,000 rather than 16,000 pounds), the two can be easily reconciled by presuming that the former takes into account the earlier local payments mentioned in the treaty.¹¹⁰ Indeed, the fact that the Chronicle records the smaller of these sums suggests that its author was hardly prone to wild exaggeration. It would seem to follow that payments of up to 22,000 pounds were conceivable. While questions might still be raised about the larger sums mentioned in Æthelred’s later years, it is clear that matters had reached a more critical point by then; commensurately larger payments were thus to be expected.

It would seem, therefore, that the tribute figures given in the Chronicle are broadly reliable. Raising such sums must have required much effort and not a little ingenuity and, as we have seen, there are signs of strain on royal and episcopal purse-strings in these years. That the tributes were collected at all certainly speaks of the organizational capabilities of Æthelred’s regime; that they were necessary reveals the dire straits in which the English found themselves.111 As elsewhere, however, it is important not to press the evidence too far: the tributes raised were very much ad hoc measures and there is no reason to believe that such sums could be collected in the normal run of things. Indeed, to speak of Æthelredian England as a ‘tax state’, like those which were to emerge in the early modern period, would go too far: the collection of tribute was only ever a periodic expedient, and even the annual ‘army tax’ (heregeld ) instituted in Æthelred’s final years need not have exceeded the profits on fiscal lands (profits which, incidentally, may also have contributed to these payments).¹¹² Moreover, such measures were by no means an exclusively English phenomenon; while the recorded payments are larger than the sums used to buy off Scandinavian raiders in ninth-century Francia, the principle was much the same, and it is conceivable that the tribute raised by Henry I in the face of the Magyar threat was of a similar order of magnitude (though our sources fail us as to the details here). In any case, the Chronicle consistently refers to these payments as ‘tribute’ ( gafol ) not ‘tax’ ( geld ), emphasizing their informal nature. Though some of the sums may have been raised in a similar manner to the later heregeld, by means of a levy on each hide, one suspects that other measures were also employed: lands were sold or given in pledge, those with greater wealth stumped up money for those with fewer available funds and existing stores of gold and silver were liberally raided.¹¹³ This is what we see in the charter record and there are signs of similar practices elsewhere. Around this time (perhaps c. 1009) Wulfstan of York complained that churches had been ‘entirely despoiled within and without’ (inne 7 ute clæne berypte) and ‘stripped within of all that is fitting’ (innan bestrypte ælcra gerisena) and the monks of Worcester – who were under Wulfstan’s oversight in these years – were later to claim that they had been forced to melt down many treasures to meet such payments.114 Plundering churches was a common expedient in times of need and Henry I may have resorted to similar measures in order to raise the Magyar tribute.¹¹⁵ In any case, it is clear that the sums were not paid in coin alone, a fact which goes some way towards explaining why finds of Anglo-Saxon coins from Scandinavia, though plentiful, do not map neatly on to known payments of tribute: coins of the Last Small Cross type (c. 1009–18) are not especially common, whereas there is a heavy concentration of Long Cross coins (c. 997–1003/5), which were issued in a period in which only one payment of tribute is reported, and finds of English coins remain high well after such payments end. Moreover, there are even larger quantities of German coins, without any evidence for substantial payments of tribute from these regions.¹¹⁶

As noted, such a diverse approach to raising funds is suggested by the cases in which lands were sold or exchanged for movable wealth. Here we hear of ‘one pound of silver in purest gold’ (unius libre argenti … de auro purissimo) and ‘a weight of red gold and also a gift of purest silver’ (auri quoque pondus rubicundi argentique munus purissimi) amounting to 300 mancuses; clearly, pounds and mancuses were measures of value, not references to coinage per se.¹¹⁷ This is also clear from the treaty of 994, where the payment is said to constitute 22,000 pounds ‘of gold and silver’ ( goldes 7 seolfres), gold coinage not being in usage in this period.118 The tributes raised do not, therefore, represent the maximum ‘tax capacity’ of the realm, but rather what could be found when no other options were available. The complaints of Wulfstan and the monks of Worcester give us a sense of the burden these payments represented and it may be these which inspired Ælfric’s famous assertion that God approves that kindness be shown to those suffering afflictions from ‘various taxes’ (mislicum geldum).¹¹⁹ Similarly informative, though less well known, are the remarks of the anonymous Latin tract ‘On Tribulations’ (De tribulationibus), which survives in a manuscript associated with Archbishop Wulfstan and was apparently composed in these years, perhaps within the prelate’s circles.¹²⁰ The text laments the ills that have come upon the nation on account of sin, asserting that recent misfortunes represent the greatest trials faced by the English since their arrival in Britain. Amongst these travails the author complains specifically about the ‘vast amount of money’ (infinitam pecuniam) which has been expended in ensuring the liberty of the English, a sum which he believes they may never recoup.¹²¹ However, here as elsewhere tribute is but one of many causes for concern and the author’s main message is that his people must mend their ways. We have seen that in the Eynsham charter Æthelred expresses his commitment to good works and rooting out sin, and the author of De tribulationibus clearly felt similarly; only a return to pious ways could save the English.

There are, in fact, many indications that the royal programme of reform and renewal introduced in 993 was maintained in the years following the ‘palace revolution’. In the charter confirming a portion of the lands originally given to St Albans in order to help raise tribute, Æthelred underlines his pious motives for doing so. This may seem like special pleading, since the king took back the lion’s share of these estates at this point. However, these lands (or most thereof) had been intended as a surety or pledge, as we have seen, which was now being redeemed (in exchange for an appropriate payment, it should be noted); a degree of generosity was thus still involved.122 This is not the only privilege the monks of St Albans received in these years: they were also the recipients (for a price) of the forfeited estates of Ealdorman Leofsige, who fell from grace in 1002 and whose lands were confirmed in their possession in 1007.¹²³ Both this and the preceding diploma are framed as restitutions of lands once granted to the centre by Offa of Mercia (757–96) and in issuing these documents Æthelred was acknowledging the traditional (and doubtless largely legendary) claims of the monks. In fact, the second of these diplomas states that the king was acting ‘so that I might restore to God what is God’s’ (ut Deo quae Dei erant restituerem), an allusion to the oft-quoted biblical dictum that the faithful are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God those that are God’s (Mark XII.17, Matthew XX.21, Luke XX.25) – his pious intentions are hard to miss. St Albans itself had been reformed by Ælfric, the later bishop of Ramsbury (990–5) and archbishop of Canterbury (995–1005, probably in plurality with Ramsbury), and thus belonged to the same circles the king had favoured since 993.¹²⁴ The centre clearly benefited from these and other transactions and Matthew Paris, writing in the mid-thirteenth century, was to speak of Æthelred as a particularly generous benefactor.¹²⁵ Other monastic houses also enjoyed royal favour in these years: Æthelwold’s foundation at Ely was also involved in buying lands from the king, as we have seen; Wulgeat, abbot of Wulfric Spot’s foundation at Burton, exchanged lands with the monarch in 1008; and Athelney received a small grant of land at Hamp in Somerset in 1009.¹²⁶ In all of these documents Æthelred emphasizes his pious intentions and, though such statements may come across as rather clichéd, there can be little doubt as to the king’s sincerity. Indeed, in the last of these documents, in favour of Alfred the Great’s foundation at Athelney, Æthelred states that the grant has been made so that the monks might intercede with frequent prayers ‘for our frailty’ (pro nostra fragilitate), a poignant expression of piety in an hour of particular need; it does not take much of a leap of faith to conclude that Æthelred himself was feeling decidedly frail at this point.127 Thus, despite – or indeed perhaps because of – the strains on royal finances, the king continued to support religious houses where and when he could.

More important than the specific relationship between these texts is the general impression they make. They lay out a broad programme of reform, starting by enjoining that ‘all love and honour one God, and zealously observe one faith’ (ealle ænne God lufian 7 wurðian 7 ænne Cristendom georne healdan: prologue 1) – one of Wulfstan’s favoured turns of phrase – and that ‘justice be promoted and any injustice zealously suppressed’ (rihte lage up arære 7 ælce unlage georne afille: prologue 1.1). Here we see the kinds of ideas previously expressed in diplomas starting to find their way into royal decrees: the aim is to reform church and society. In keeping with this, many of the ordinances reveal a decidedly ecclesiastical outlook: men of all estates, but especially ‘servants of God’ (Godes þeowas), are to fulfil their duties (chapter 5), all monks are to remain in their monasteries and keep their vows (chapter 6), ordained clerics are to maintain celibacy (chapters 7, 9) and all Christian men are enjoined to avoid illicit unions and observe church laws (chapter 10). Further decrees address the payment of church dues (chapters 11–12), the observance of the Sabbath and church feasts, including Edward the Martyr’s (chapters 13–17, 19), and the necessity of penance for ‘every Christian’ (æghwilc Cristen man) (chapter 22).135 There are, however, also ordinances of a more secular nature: Christians are not to be sold (into slavery) in foreign lands, especially to pagans (chapter 2); men are not to be condemned to death for trivial offences (chapter 3); widows are to lead respectable lives and enjoy royal protection (chapter 21); injustices and crimes of various natures are to be avoided (chapters 24–5); those who oppose the law shall pay their wergild or a fine (chapter 31); and arrangements for the transferring of property are to be regularized (chapter 32). As these lists show, the distinction between ‘secular’ and ‘ecclesiastical’ matters is often a fine one: the primary concern is for the ordering of Christian society. Here Wulfstan’s legislation builds on the ideals set out by the reformers of Edgar’s day: society is understood in Christian terms, with the very distinction between ‘secular’ and ‘ecclesiastical’ blurring.¹³⁶ As elsewhere, there is a distinctly homiletic element to the archbishop’s laws: some clauses are legal injunctions, but others are largely rhetorical commands to the effect that ‘all love one God’ (ealle ænne God lufian: prologue) or ‘every injustice is to be zealously cast out’ (æghwilc unriht awurpe man georne: chapter 23). Cumulatively, the message is clear enough: divine favour is to be courted in all manners imaginable. What is new is the scope of these ordinances: whereas previously the focus had been on the king and court – Æthelred sought to amend his youthful indiscretions, then to support individual religious centres within his realm – now piety and reform are being enjoined upon the nation at large. There has thus been a subtle but unmistakable shift of focus, one already heralded by the more general terms in which the Eynsham charter is couched: now all the English are to do ‘good works’. That this shift should coincide with a change in medium is only appropriate: whereas Æthelred’s earlier acts of repentance and reform had been communicated primarily through diplomas, documents best suited to communicating with specific individuals and groups (above all individual religious houses), henceforth it was royal ordinances that would be preferred – the entire nation was being called to action.137

Reforming in tone though the Enham decrees are, they also touch on a number of more pragmatic matters of defence and administration. One of the more famous clauses declares that military service (fyrdunga) and the repairing of fortresses and bridges (burhbot and bricbot) – traditional public duties, it should be noted – are to be attended to diligently throughout the realm (chapter 26.1).¹³⁸ This is followed by further clauses on military matters: ships are to be fitted out so that they might be ready soon after Easter every year (chapter 27) and anyone who deserts an army led by the king is to forfeit his life or wergild, while those abandoning any other army are to pay a fine of 120 shillings (chapter 28). These clauses clearly relate to the efforts mentioned in the Chronicle under this year. However, the emphasis is different: while the chronicler focuses on what seem to have been a set of new royal demands (for ships, helms and armour), the Enham ordinances enjoin the correct fulfilment of existing duties. Indeed, the reference to repairing ships suggests that this was (or was meant to become) an annual affair. Perhaps most interesting are the injunctions regarding desertion, which imply that morale was starting to flag; evidently loyalty could no longer be presumed. The main Chronicle-account records many examples of treacherous behaviour and, while some of these are probably exaggerated for dramatic effect, there may be a kernel of truth to the tales, at least where Æthelred’s later years are concerned (indeed, it has been suggested that the author transposes the problems of this period on to earlier parts of Æthelred’s reign).¹³⁹

While it is difficult to know the extent to which these ordinances were followed, they reveal something of the resolve at Æthelred’s court. There are other indications that the kingdom’s defences were strengthened around this time. A number of fortified sites came into use as minting centres and their defences may have been refurbished as part of this process (we have evidence for this at South Cadbury: see Plate 12).140 On this basis it has been suggested that secondary fortification with stone revetments at various ‘burghal’ sites, such as Cricklade, Hereford, Lydford, Wallingford and Wareham, also took place in these years.¹⁴¹ Similar evidence can be found beyond the classic ‘burghal’ centres: the defences on top of Silbury Hill (Wilts.) can be associated with Æthelred’s later years on the basis of a Last Small Cross (c. 1009–17) cut farthing found there, and it may be that nearby Avebury underwent a degree of replanning in these years;¹⁴² the second phase of fortification at Daws Castle (Som.) has been dated to Æthelred’s reign (perhaps the 990s, though conceivably the 1000s);¹⁴³ Oldaport (south Devon) has produced evidence of refortification in the later Anglo-Saxon period (873 × 1020), which has been plausibly associated with Æthelred’s efforts;¹⁴⁴ there are indications that the defences at Dover and the nearby coast were reorganized around this time, a process which involved establishing look-outs and beacons at sites such as St-Mary-in-Castro and using existing settlements such as Hythe, Romney and Sandwich (a favoured viking landing-place);¹⁴⁵ the second phase of pre-Norman fortification at Carisbrooke Castle, located on a strategic hill-top on the Isle of Wight (another favoured Scandinavian base), can probably also be placed in these years;¹⁴⁶ and finally, it was in the late tenth or early eleventh century that fortified bridges of the continental type were built at London and Bristol.147 While we cannot be sure precisely when most of these locations were (re)fortified and reorganized, they provide a tangible sense of the efforts undertaken; far from being a period of terminal decline for Alfredian (and post-Alfredian) fortified sites, the reign of Æthelred saw a renewed interest in civil defence, one which went well beyond (though certainly also included) the old ‘burghal’ network. It may be that this was a case of ‘too little, too late’, as some have suggested, but archaeological dating is not a precise science and it may be that much of this work had begun in the 990s or even earlier. Indeed, the unusually expressive form in which the ‘three common burdens’ (bridgework, fortress-work and military service) are stipulated in two diplomas of Æthelred’s early years suggests that these were already a matter of interest in the late 980s.¹⁴⁸

It is above all the stalwart determination of Æthelred and his counsellors to do whatever is necessary for the well-being of the kingdom which emerges from the Enham decrees. If Karl Jost is correct, then the short text known as Napier 51 may take us to the very heart of the deliberations. A hortatory speech, written in Wulfstan’s distinctive style, it may have been delivered by the archbishop to the king and his assembled counsellors at Enham. The text opens by enjoining the archbishop’s listeners to remain steadfast in their faith ‘so that the security of all the people will be greater than it is at present’ (þæt ealles folces frið wyrðe betere, þonne hit git sig). What follows is a number of instructions, many of which find close parallels in the Enham decrees: all are to love God and reject other deities; justice is to be promoted and injustice abolished; murderers, traitors and ‘those that abandon their lord at his hour of greatest need’ (þa, þa heora forlætað, þær him mæst neod byð) are to be hated by God, as are perjurers and oath-breakers; penance is to be performed diligently by all; and sanctuary is not to be violated. Finally, the archbishop invokes divine mercy on his people.149 What emerges is a mix of hope and concern: hope that the present situation might be righted, but concern lest it not be. Moreover, here as in the Enham ordinances secular and ecclesiastical concerns are closely related – the entire social order depends upon the English following the laws of God and man. This association is especially clear in Wulfstan’s treatment of traitors: by breaking their oaths of loyalty, these men have contravened both divine and human law and are rightly hated by God.

This is all stirring stuff, but the question arises as to whether we are simply hearing Wulfstan’s voice. Indeed, since first identified as products of the archbishop in the first half of the twentieth century, it has been common to view the Enham decrees through the lens of Wulfstan’s other writings, treating them as an expression of the archbishop’s own thoughts and concerns. This is perfectly natural, but there is a danger of forgetting that they were issued in Æthelred’s name and proceed from discussions with the king and his other leading advisers. In fact, many of the ideas expressed find close parallels in earlier documents: to present current ills as the wages of sin and to prescribe piety, penitence and reform in response was nothing new, and Wulfstan must have known it. The real change is not of substance but of tone – whereas Æthelred’s earlier diplomas declare and declaim, Wulfstan’s decrees exhort and exclaim. In part this reflects the prelate’s own stylistic preferences: as an experienced preacher, he naturally slipped into hortative mode. It may also reflect growing concern at court: matters had gone from bad to worse in recent years, and if Æthelred chose a man known for his vocal criticism of contemporary society to compose his decrees, it is presumably because this was the tone he wanted to strike. The strains of the viking attacks were thus starting to reach critical levels and Æthelred’s response was to redouble existing efforts to build a Christian society. The overarching aim remained a return to the ‘Golden Age’ of reform. The choice of site is particularly poignant in this regard. As M.K. Lawson notes, Enham (Eanham) literally means the ‘the place where lambs are bred’ and it may be that this location was chosen with the symbolism of the Lamb of God in mind, the biblical figure who was to take away the sins of the world.150 More to the point, Enham lies only two and a half miles north of Andover, where Edgar had issued an important set of decrees on the payment of church dues and the celebration of religious festivals, whose stipulations provide the immediate model for a number of the Enham ordinances; Æthelred was quite literally following in the footsteps of his father.¹⁵¹

A further sign of strain in these years has sometimes been identified in the high number of recorded cases of litigation, which have been seen as amounting to a veritable crime wave. However, as Patrick Wormald observed, close inspection reveals this to be something of a chimera: forfeiture for crime was common throughout the tenth century and Æthelred’s reign saw no notable rise in this regard (at least in statistical terms).¹⁵² Indeed, what is new is not so much the cases themselves as the detail in which they are recorded. As Sir Frank Stenton first noted, there is an ‘air of retrospection’ in Æthelred’s diplomas, which often record individual estate histories (including prior cases of litigation) in greater detail than had hitherto been customary; our records thus become more expressive. Simon Keynes has therefore argued that the ‘crime wave’ of these years was more apparent than real, a product of richer sources rather than rising lawlessness.¹⁵³

If we look to the types of crimes mentioned in other records of forfeit-ure, it is striking how similar these are to those of previous years: theft looms large,160 as do fighting and killing (sometimes in conjunction with theft),¹⁶¹ and there is at least one case of sheltering a fugitive.¹⁶² This is not, however, to say that no new developments can be seen. In particular, Æthelred’s reign witnesses some of the first recorded cases of forfeiture for sexual offences, reflecting the growing importance of church regulations on matrimony.¹⁶³ More noteworthy, perhaps, is the growing number of cases of treachery: in the previous century we have only one of these, while three are recorded for Æthelred’s reign. That such offences should be more common in periods of foreign invasion speaks for itself and it is striking that the one earlier case comes from Alfred’s reign, when similar threats were encountered.¹⁶⁴ It is probably also no accident that these cases cluster around Æthelred’s later years: the first is from the early to mid-990s, while the other two are from his last half-decade on the throne.¹⁶⁵ These thus represent something new and it is against this backdrop that the Enham ordinances regarding treachery and flight from battle should be understood. Some of the other cases of criminality may be related indirectly to the strains of having to defend the realm, but it would be dangerous to presume too strong a connection; as we have noted, lawlessness itself was nothing new. Likewise, though it has been suggested that the non-payment of tax and tribute frequently led to forfeiture, there is little evidence of this from these years (which is not, of course, to say that this did not happen).¹⁶⁶

It has become almost axiomatic that later Anglo-Saxon England was governed more intensively than its continental counterparts, and the evidence of dispute records can here be placed alongside other indications that despite – or indeed perhaps on account of – the viking onslaught royal authority remained vital throughout Æthelred’s reign: shires and shire reeves make prominent appearances; recoinages become a regular feature of the monetary system; tribute and tax were raised on an unprecedented scale; fortifications were strengthened and renovated, ships built and arms and armour produced; and the king was able to appoint and dismiss senior officers seemingly at will (as in 1005–6 and 1015). However, while there can be little doubt that England was ruled more intensively than all but its most centralized continental counterparts – generally duchies or principalities (such as Anjou or Bavaria), which were closer in size to southern England – there is a danger of exaggerating the differences. Royal authority never disappeared entirely in Capetian France, as recent studies have shown, while in Henry II’s Germany (1002–24) it may have enjoyed something of a renaissance.169 Moreover, none of the measures undertaken by Æthelred is unique to England: as we have seen, Henry I had resorted to fortress-building, rearmament and tribute-raising in the face of the Magyar threat and similar approaches had been taken against the vikings in West Francia half a century earlier. More to the point, many of the developments of these years – large-scale collection of tribute and taxation; growing reliance on shire reeves; harsh treatment of political opponents and suspected traitors – are best seen as emergency measures which only later became an established feature of royal rule. The coincidence that Edgar’s initial moves towards institutionalization and centralization were followed by an extended ‘crisis period’ under Æthelred might thus be said to have given birth to the assertive brand of royal authority so evocatively described by James Campbell and Patrick Wormald; it was out of the crucible of these years that the ‘late Anglo-Saxon state’ emerged. Such developments were neither inevitable, nor were they welcomed by all of Æthelred’s subjects; more invasive systems of rule tend to benefit those closest to central authority and to many these changes must have been unwelcome. Lantfred of Winchester, writing in the 970s or early 980s, already expressed hostility towards the local reeve at Calne (Wilts.) and such sentiments may have been shared by Ealdorman Leofsige, who, as we have seen, clashed repeatedly with Æthelred’s reeves.¹⁷⁰ There were other implications of these developments. As George Molyneaux notes, greater demands also seem to have been made on the ruler in these years; as kingship became more intensive and invasive, expectations of the king grew commensurately.¹⁷¹

An examination of the other charters of these years reveals further evidence for such thoughts. Thus, a diploma forged at Rochester in the 990s includes an allusion to the ‘dangerous times’ (tempora periculosa) in which it was produced; though purportedly a donation of Edgar, this comment can probably be read as a response to developments at the time of its composition.¹⁸² The preamble of a diploma in favour of Westminster Abbey in 998 likewise suggests an active interest in the signs of the end, asserting that ‘we know that in the final times dissension grows, discord bubbles up, greed burns, friendship falters, the love of many grows cold and unheard-of evils transpire’.¹⁸³ Rather more noteworthy, perhaps, is the charter issued in favour of Shaftesbury in which the cult of Edward the Martyr is first mentioned (1001), whose preamble quotes Luke XXI.31 to the effect that ‘when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand’ (cum uideritis hec fieri, scitote quia prope est regnum Dei).¹⁸⁴ A document of the following year contains a proem which opens with a consideration of the Fall of Man, then closes with a quotation from Matthew IV.17 to the effect that mankind must now ‘do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (poenitentiam agite, appropinquabit enim regnum coelorum), a citation employed two years later by the draftsman of a diploma in favour of Burton.185 Hints of such thoughts can even be found in the St Frideswide’s charter of 1004. As we have seen, this document invokes the tale of the cockles and the wheat to describe recent Scandinavian settlement in England, a parable which itself carried eschatological connotations – it is an allegory of the Day of Judgement, at which the evil will finally face justice, and was cited by both Bede and Ælfric in their discussions of the end times.¹⁸⁶ However, perhaps the most charged apocalyptic utterance is to be found in the Eynsham charter of 1005, whose lengthy preamble alludes to the ‘dangerous times’ (tempora periculosa) in which it is issued and cites the same passage from I Corinthians X.11 (‘we are those upon whom the ends of the world are come’) found in the Sherborne charter of 998.¹⁸⁷ It emerges from these documents that many at and around court harboured apocalyptic hopes and fears, and we should do well to presume that Æthelred did so too; while divine wrath might be a passing phenomenon, when sufficient signs and portents were present it was often tempting to read a greater cosmic significance into events. Such beliefs may, in turn, explain something of the fever pitch of politics in these years: the king was not only concerned for his nation’s material well-being, but also for the fate of humankind.

While attempts have been made to read this passage as a sign of Wulfstan’s relative lack of interest in the year 1000 and strict orthodoxy where eschatological prediction is concerned (Augustine of Hippo had famously forbad attempts to reckon the precise moment of the end),¹⁹³ it is clear that he was indeed open to such thoughts: Wulfstan sees the fact that a thousand years has passed since the incarnation of Christ as a sign that the prophecy in Revelation is about to be fulfilled. Wulfstan was not alone in according the year 1000 some significance. A tract on the six ages of the world, which places the end of the sixth and final age in AD 999 or 1000, is preserved in three English manuscripts of the late tenth or early eleventh century, suggesting that some people were quite literally counting down to the end of time (despite Augustine’s strictures).194 The draftsmen of three charters produced in the years following the millennium go to considerable lengths to avoid writing the Roman numeral M (1000) – one, for example, is dated ‘since the incarnation of Christ 990 years, nine and thrice two, indeed the sixth year in the course of the millennium [i.e. 1005]’ (decursis annis ab incarnatione Christi. dcccc.xc. nouentis terque binis in cursu millenario equidem sexto) – perhaps suggesting a degree of anxiety about this date.¹⁹⁵

One might be forgiven for imagining that such thoughts were at odds with the other dominant paradigm for interpreting the Scandinavian attacks, which saw these as a form of divine punishment which might be lifted by appropriate acts of repentance. In a justly famous article Malcolm Godden argued precisely this: that as Wulfstan’s career progressed and the millennium receded from sight, the archbishop became less apocalyptic and more penitential in outlook – he moved from seeing the ills of his age as signs of the (inevitable) end of time, to understanding them as (passing) punishments for sin, which would be lifted if the English returned to pious ways.¹⁹⁹ However, more recent work has relativized these claims. For a start, it has become clear that Wulfstan’s apocalypticism was not restricted to his early years: his two most developed eschatological homilies were written after 1005 and even at the end of his career the archbishop continued to espouse the belief that the end was nigh, as shown by a sermon he seems to have preached before Cnut and his counsellors (c. 1018).²⁰⁰ Much the same is suggested by the charter material, in which apocalyptic utterances can be found alongside penitential readings of contemporary events throughout these years; the belief that the end is nigh, on the one hand, and the hope that the English might yet obtain mercy through atonement, on the other, were apparently not mutually exclusive. It may be that some were unconcerned by the apparent contradiction between these lines of thought – either way, the solution was much the same: to repent and do good while time remained. There may, however, also have been a more intimate association between these concepts. It was expected that sin and iniquity would rise immediately before the end of time, a fact which potentially gave a place to human agency in these developments: if people were especially sinful or pious, they might speed up or slow down the ‘final countdown’.201 This seems to be precisely what Wulfstan had in mind: by neglecting piety the people of his day had brought disaster upon themselves, a disaster which if unchecked threatened to take on cosmic proportions. This may explain why he, despite his pronounced interest in eschatology, shied away from identifying the vikings with Gog and Magog or the other ‘peoples of the Endtime’ (as his continental counterparts had done in the face of the Magyars); to Wulfstan they are not so much the horsemen of the apocalypse, as signs of sin, which is itself evidence of the end of times.²⁰² Repentance and reform were thus not only necessary because the end was at hand; they also had the potential to turn back the eschatological clock. This seems to be what the draftsman of the Eynsham charter had in mind too: though ‘dangerous times’ are come, he clearly hopes that ‘good works’ might yet offer the English a way out of their bind.

Acknowledging the part played by apocalypticism in the politics of these years throws salient light on many other aspects of Æthelred’s regime. The very intensity with which the king pursued his programme of reform and repentance becomes readily understandable if we appreciate that he saw these struggles partly in cosmic terms: by battling sinfulness Æthelred was facing down the precursors of Antichrist who, if successful, might pave the way for the end of time. We have seen that penitential regimes have a tendency to conduct periodic waves of purges, often of increasing scale, and much the same is true of apocalyptic regimes – because these are focused on either preventing or preparing the way for the Last Times, they too show scant regard for traditional Realpolitik.203 Thus, while it has been suggested that the ‘immediate reality’ of the Scandinavian attacks would have served to push apocalyptic anxieties to the background, the reverse seems if anything to have been the case: the harder the English were pressed, the nearer they felt they were to the end.²⁰⁴

Viewed together, the years between the arrival of a large Scandinavian force in 1002 and the programme of reform and refortification inaugurated in 1008 were amongst the busiest of Æthelred’s long reign. While the 990s had seen much soul-searching, there is a marked change in tone after the turn of the millennium; as it became clear that early efforts had not borne fruit, the king and his counsellors resorted to ever more drastic solutions to the ‘viking problem’. The first sign of desperation is the St Brice’s Day Massacre of 1002; the second is the ‘palace revolution’ of 1005–6. Yet, as the arrival of the ‘great fleet’ in 1006 demonstrated, even these efforts proved insufficient. After paying a record tribute in 1007, the king and his counsellors spent much of the next year readying themselves for the worst: they ordered helms, coats of armour and had ships prepared, but also issued ordinances about penance and piety. Thus, old approaches were being continued in new guises: the king had receded somewhat from the picture and the focus was now increasingly on the sins of the nation, but the basic principle remained much the same: to repent and reform, purge and pray, while time remained.

¹L. Abrams, ‘Early Normandy’, ANS 35 (2013), 45–64; F. McNair, ‘The Politics of Being Norman in the Reign of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy (r. 942–996)’, EME 23 (2015), 308–28.

²Papsturkunden ed. Zimmerman, no. 307; with discussion above, Chapter 3, p. 117.

³William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum ducum V.4, ed. E.M.C. van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992–5), II, 10–14; with Keynes, ‘Historical Context’, 94–5; and E.[M.C.] van Houts, ‘Normandy’s View of the Anglo-Saxon Past in the Twelfth Century’, in The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. M. Brett and D.A. Woodman (Farnham, 2015), 123–40, at 125–6.

⁴ASC 1002 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 89); Stafford, ‘Queen’s Wife’, 18.

⁵Stafford, Queen Emma, 216–17. See also Stafford, ‘Sons and Mothers’, 92–3.

⁶On the date of Ælfthryth’s death (17 November 999 × 1001), see Keynes, Diplomas, 210, n. 203.

⁷R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (London, 1993), esp. 5–59.

⁸Foot, Veiled Women II, 23 and 215.

⁹S 904 (KCD 707); with Stafford, Queen Emma, 79. See also Stafford, ‘Queens’, 26–8, who places greater emphasis on the criticism of Ælfthryth; and above, Chapter 1, p. 58, on Æthelingadene.

¹⁰Councils, ed. Whitelock, no. 40, 226. See Councils, ed. Whitelock, 193–5; and Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 170–1.

¹¹ASC CDE 1002 (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 89).

¹²In addition to the works cited above, Chapter 4, p. 182, n. 149, see Stafford, ‘Royal Government’, 304–10 and 322–30; and Banton, ‘Ealdormen and Earls’, 176–82.

¹³S 883 (Abing 125).

¹⁴S 916 (StAlb 12). See further below, p. 221.

¹⁵S. Keynes, ‘The Massacre of St Brice’s Day (13 November 1002)’, in Beretning fra seksogtyvende tværfaglige vikingessymposium, ed. N. Lund (Aarhus, 2007), 32–67, at 38.

¹⁶ASC 1002 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 89): ‘7 on þam geare se cyng het ofslean ealle þa Deniscan men þe on Angelcynne wæron; ðis wæs gedon on Britius mæssedæig, forðam þam cyninge wæs gecyd þæt hi woldan hine besyrwan æt his life 7 siððan ealle his witan 7 habban siþþan þis rice.’

¹⁷Freeman, Norman Conquest, 317; Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 374.

¹⁸Freeman, Norman Conquest, 315–16. See also Lavelle, Aethelred II, 104–9.

¹⁹D.W. Hadley, ‘“Cockle amongst the Wheat”: The Scandinavian Settlement of England’, in Social Identity in Early Medieval Britain, ed. W.O. Frazer and A. Tyrell (London, 2000), 111–35, at 117–20.

²⁰S 943 (ed. Hart, Early Charters, 190–1).

²¹Cf. Campbell, ‘England, France, Flanders and Germany’, 200.

²²Keynes, ‘Tale of Two Kings’, 212.

²³ASC 1001 A (ed. Bately, 80).

²⁴Keynes, Diplomas, 127. See further Keynes, ‘Massacre’, 33–4.

²⁵S 909 (ed. S.R.Wigram, The Cartulary of the Monastery of St Frideswide at Oxford, I [Oxford, 1895], 2–7): ‘Anno dominicae incarnationis millesimo quarto, indictione secunda, anno uero imperii mei uicesimo quinto, dei disponente prouidentia, ego Æ∂elred, totius Albionis monarchiam gubernans, monasterium quoddam in urbe situm quae Oxoneforde appellatur, ubi beata requiescit Frideswide libertate priuilegii auctoritate regali pro cunctipatrantis amore stabiliui, et territoria quae ipsi adiacent Christi archisterio noui restauratione libelli recuperaui, cunctisque hanc paginam intuentibus qua ratione id actum sit paucis uerborum signis retexam. Omnibus enim in hac patria degentibus sat constat fore notissimum, quoddam a me decretum cum consilio optimatum satrapumque meorum exiuit, ut cuncti Dani qui in hac insula uelut lolium inter triticum pullulando emerserant, iustissima ex[ter]minacione necarentur, hocque decretum morte tenus ad effectum perduceretur, ipsi quique in praefata urbe morabantur Dani mortem euadere nitentes, hoc Christi sacrarium fractis per uim ualuis et pessulis, intrantes asylum sibi propugnaculumque contra urbanos suburbanosque inibi fieri decreuerunt; sed cum populus omnis insequens, necessitate compulsus, eos eiicere niteretur nec ualeret, igne tabulis iniecto, hanc aecclesiam, ut liquet, cum munimentis ac libris, combusserunt.’ Translation adapted from Whitelock, EHD, no. 127, 590–1.

²⁶J. Blair, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (Stroud, 1997), 167–70.

²⁷S. Reynolds, ‘What Do We Mean by “Anglo-Saxon” and “Anglo-Saxons”?’, Journal of British Studies 24 (1985), 395–414, at 412; Stafford, Unification, 66; Keynes, ‘Massacre’, 39–40.

²⁸Keynes, Atlas, table LIX. It is possible that S 902 (Abing 131) stems from the meeting at which this decision was made, in which case its witness-list may provide a guide to those involved: J. Wilcox, ‘The St. Brice’s Day Massacre and Archbishop Wulfstan’, in Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Co-Existence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. D. Wolfthal (Turnhout, 2000), 79–91, esp. 85–6.

²⁹Ælfric, CH: FS XXXV.122–32 (ed. Clemoes, 480). See Wilcox, ‘Massacre’, 84.

³⁰Though Keynes, ‘Massacre’, 36, suggests that the Danes may not have consciously sought sanctuary, the language employed by the draftsman suggests otherwise.

³¹Cf. J.L. Nelson, ‘Religion and Politics in the Reign of Charlemagne’, in Religion und Politik im Mittelalter. Deutschland und England im Vergleich, ed. L. Körntgen and D. Waßenhoven (Berlin, 2013), 17–29.

³²L. Loe et al., ‘Given to the Ground’: A Viking Age Mass Grave on Ridgeway Hill, Weymouth (Oxford, 2014). See also A. Boyle, ‘Death on the Dorset Ridgeway: A Viking Murder Mystery’, HSJ 25 (2013), 19–33.

³³See A. Reynolds, Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burial Customs (Oxford, 2009), 151–79, 219–27 and 247–50.

³⁴Cf. Boyle, ‘Death on the Dorset Ridgeway’, 32, asserting that ‘the Danes who were slaughtered on St Brice’s Day were not an invading army but a settled civilian population’. See also Loe et al., ‘Given to the Ground’, 211, now leaving the question more open.

³⁵Cf. Keynes, ‘Massacre’, 38, suggesting that much of the mercenary force was based on the Isle of Wight.

³⁶ASC 982 C (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 85). Cf. Æthelweard, Chronicon III.4 (ed. Campbell, 30). See further Lavelle, ‘Law, Death and Peacemaking’, 131–4.

³⁷S. Wallis et al., The Oxford Henge and Late Saxon Massacre with Medieval and Later Occupation at St John’s College, Oxford (Reading, 2014). See also A.M. Polland et al., ‘“Sprouting like Cockle Amongst the Wheat”: The St. Brice’s Day Massacre and the Isotopic Analysis of Human Bones from St. John’s College, Oxford’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 31 (2012), 83–102.

³⁸Ibid., 92–3. See further Wallis et al., Oxford Henge, 137–9 and 151–7.

³⁹On the injuries, see also Loe et al., ‘Given to the Ground’, 231.

⁴⁰Wallis et al., Oxford Henge, 233–5. Cf. Pollard et al., ‘St Brice’s Day Massacre’, 98.

⁴¹Boyle, ‘Death on the Dorset Ridgeway’, 31. See also Loe et al., ‘Given to the Ground’, 224–35.

⁴²William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum II.177 (ed. Mynors, 300).

⁴³William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum ducum V.6 (ed. van Houts, II, 14–16).

⁴⁴Keynes, ‘Massacre’, 48–50.

⁴⁵P.[H.] Sawyer, ‘Cnut’s Scandinavian Empire’, in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. A.R. Rumble (London, 1994), 10–22, at 16–17.

⁴⁶ASC 1003 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 89–90).

⁴⁷Naismith, Medieval European Coinage, ch. 10, and ‘Coinage of Æthelred’, 130–1.

⁴⁸R.H.M. Dolley, ‘The Sack of Wilton in 1003 and the Chronology of the “Long Cross” and “Helmet” Types of Æthelræd II’, Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad 5 (May 1954), 152–6; C.E. Blunt and C.S.S. Lyon, ‘Some Notes on the Mints of Wilton and Salisbury’, in Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildebrand, ed. K. Jonsson (Stockholm, 1990), 25–34.

⁴⁹A. Gannon, The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage: Sixth to Eighth Centuries (Oxford, 2003), 51–4.

⁵⁰Marten, ‘Shiring of East Anglia’, 14–17.

⁵¹ASC 1004–5 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 90–1).

⁵²Raoul Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque II.17, ed. J. France, Rodulfus Glaber Opera (Oxford, 1989), 80–2; with P. Bonassie, ‘Consommation d’aliments immondes et cannibalisme de survie dans l’Occident du haut Moyen Âge’ (1989), repr. in and cited from his Les sociétés de l’an mil. Un monde entre deux âges (Brussels, 2001), 143–68, at 163–5. See further F. Curschmann, Hungersnöte im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Wirtschaftsgeschichte des 8. bis 13. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1900), 108–10.

⁵³ASC 1006 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 91); S 918 (Abing 135); with Keynes, Diplomas, 209–14. See also E. Boyle, ‘A Welsh Record of an Anglo-Saxon Political Mutilation’, ASE 35 (2006), 245–9.

⁵⁴Keynes, Atlas, tables LXII–LXIII.

⁵⁵Keynes, ‘Tale of Two Kings’, 211–17; Williams Æthelred, 69–75.

⁵⁶S 911 (KCD 714); with S. Keynes, ‘King Æthelred’s Charter for Eynsham Abbey (1005)’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. S. Baxter et al. (Farnham, 2009), 451–73, at 459. For much of what follows, see Roach, ‘Tale of Two Charters’.

⁵⁷S 911 (KCD 714): ‘Et quia in nostris temporibus bellorum incendia direptionesque opum nostrarum patimur, necnon ex uastantium crudelissima depraedatione hostium barbarorum, paganarumque gentium multiplici tribulatione, affligentiumque nos usque ad internecionem tempora cernimus incumbere periculosa’. On the relationship between this passage and the proem of the ‘First Decemination’ charters of 844 (which were almost certainly forged on this basis), see Keynes, ‘Æthelred’s Charter’, 464–8; and cf. Charters of Malmesbury Abbey, ed. S.E. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 11 (Oxford, 2005), 80–7.

⁵⁸Cf. F.M. Stenton, The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), 27–8.

⁵⁹S 895 (Sher 11). See above, Chapter 4, pp. 156–8.

⁶⁰The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. M. Godden and S. Irvine, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2009). See further ibid., I, 140–151; and Bately, ‘Alfredian Canon’; and cf. R. Love, ‘Latin Commentaries on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy’, in The Brill Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. P. Szarmach and N.G. Discenza (Leiden, 2015), 83–110.

⁶¹S 429 (Shaft 9), S 438 (BCS 714), S 470 (WinchNM 12). See Keynes, Diplomas, 114, n. 103.

⁶²On the process of endowment, see S. Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford, 2006), 408–12; and B. Yorke, ‘Aethelmaer: The Foundation of the Abbey at Cerne and the Politics of the Tenth Century’, in The Cerne Abbey Millennium Lectures, ed. K. Barker (Cerne Abbas, 1988), 15–25, at 19–20.

⁶³Regula Benedicti, ch. 64.1–2 (ed. Neufville, 648); Regularis concordia, chs. 9–10 (ed. Symons and Spath, 74–6). See further below, p. 215.

⁶⁴Wood, Proprietary Church, 408–12. Cf. ibid., 312–408, for the bigger picture.

⁶⁵L. Tollerton, Wills and Will-Making in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2011), 67–70; Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. F.E. Harmer (Manchester, 1952), 1–38.

⁶⁶Keynes, ‘Æthelred’s Charter’, 462.

⁶⁷S 918 (Abing 135); with Keynes, Diplomas, 210–11; and Charters of Abingdon, ed. Kelly, 530.

⁶⁸S 1492 (ed. Whitelock, Councils, no. 51); S 911 (KCD 714); with Keynes, Diplomas, 209; and Williams, Æthelred, 69.

⁶⁹de Jong, ‘Paenitentia publica’, 877–87. See also M. de Jong, ‘Monastic Prisoners or Opting Out? Political Coercion and Honour in the Frankish Kingdoms’, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. M. de Jong and F. Theuws (Leiden, 2001), 291–328; and Cubitt, ‘Lay Patrons’, 175–6.

⁷⁰Keynes, ‘Tale of Two Kings’, 212–13; N. Marafioti, ‘Punishing Bodies and Saving Souls: Capital and Corporal Punishment in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, HSJ 20 (2008), 39–57. Cf. G. Bührer-Thierry, ‘“Just Anger” or “Vengeful Anger”? The Punishment of Blinding in the Early Medieval West’, in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. B.H. Rosenwein (Ithaca, NY, 1998), 75–91.

⁷¹de Jong, Penitential State, 213. See also C. Booker, Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians (Philadelphia, PA, 2009).

⁷²John of Worcester, Chronicon, s.a. 1006 (ed. Darlington and McGurk, 456–8 [with errata slip]).

⁷³Keynes, Atlas, tables LXII–LXIII.

⁷⁴John of Worcester, Chronicon, s.a. 1007 (ed. Darlington and McGurk, 460); Keynes, Atlas, table LXIII (‘Group Three’).

⁷⁵C. Insley, ‘Politics, Conflict and Kinship in Early Eleventh-Century Mercia’, Midland History 26 (2001), 28–42, esp. 30–5. See also Banton, ‘Earls and Ealdormen’, 185–6.

⁷⁶Wulfric disappears from diploma witness-lists in 1002 and his will was confirmed in 1004: Keynes, Atlas, table LXIII; S 1536 (Burt 29), S 906 (Burt 28).

⁷⁷Stafford, Queen Emma, 92, n. 118. Stafford notes that Jomsviking Saga mentions a further daughter of Æthelred as the wife of a certain Ulfkell (Ulfcytel of East Anglia?); however, these details are only found in the ‘supplement’ to this work in the late-fourteenth-century Flateyjarbók and find no confirmation in contemporary sources: Encomium Emmae reginae, ed. A. Campbell, Camden Classics Reprints 4 (Cambridge, 1998), 87–91.

⁷⁸Cf. R. Fleming, Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge, 1991), 21–39.

⁷⁹S. Keynes, ‘Eadric Streona (d. 1017)’, in ODNB, XVII, 538–9.

⁸⁰S. Keynes, ‘Edward the Ætheling (c. 1005–16)’, in Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, ed. R. Mortimer (Woodbridge, 2009), 41–62, at 43–4; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, 30. See also P.H. Sawyer, From Roman Britain to Norman England, 2^nd edn (London, 1998), 128; and Stafford, Queen Emma, 222.

⁸¹See below, Chapter 6, pp. 303–4.

⁸²Keynes, Atlas, table LXIII (note the almost complete disappearance of ‘Group Two’ at this point); with Keynes, Diplomas, 187–93 and 209–13.

⁸³In addition to the literature cited above, n. XXX, see K. Sprigade, ‘Die Einweisung ins Kloster und in den geistlichen Stand als politische Maßnahme im frühen Mittelalter’ (PhD diss., Univ. of Heidelberg, 1964).

⁸⁴Ælfric, Letter to the Monks at Eynsham, ch. 63 (ed. Jones, 140); S 911 (KCD 714). See further Letter, ed. Jones, 44–5; and Roach, ‘Tale of Two Charters’.

⁸⁵Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, ed. B. Assmann with a supplementary introduction by P. Clemoes (Darmstadt, 1964), no. 4, 49–64; with M. Clayton, ‘Of Mice and Men: Ælfric’s Second Homily for the Feast of a Confessor’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 24 (1993), 1–26, at 14–21.

⁸⁶Old English Version of the Heptateuch, ed. S. Crawford, EETS o.s. 160 (London, 1922), 72–4.

⁸⁷Ælfric, CH: FS XVIIb (ed. Clemoes, 535–42); with R.K. Upchurch, ‘A Big Dog Barks: Ælfric of Eynsham’s Indictment of the English Pastorate and Witan’, Speculum 85 (2010), 505–33. Note that Upchurch’s dating of the revision to 1002 × 1006 depends (indirectly) on Fehr’s dating of Ælfric’s homily on the Nativity of the Virgin (1005 × 1006), which itself is not above question: Councils, ed. Whitelock, 259–60. It is conceivable that this revision was made later, though probably still in Ælfric’s early years as abbot: Godden, Introduction, 136. See also Treharne, Living Through Conquest, 71–8.

⁸⁸Ælfric, Supplementary Homilies XXVI (ed. Pope, 762–69); with Clayton, ‘Of Mice and Men’, 21–2; and Cubitt, ‘Politics of Remorse’, 189–90.

⁸⁹See below, Chapter 6, p. 287.

⁹⁰ASC 1006 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 91–2). See further Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 155–6.

⁹¹Cf. G. Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (London, 2003), 125–30.

⁹²ASC 1006 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 91–2). See G. Halsall, ‘Anthropology and the Study of pre-Conquest Warfare and Society: The Ritual War in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. S.C. Hawkes (Oxford, 1989), 155–77, at 166–7. (Though note that the Chronicle does not state that the viking force remained encamped there for two weeks, as Halsall states.)

⁹³A. Sanmark and S. Semple, ‘Places of Assembly: New Discoveries in Sweden and England’, Fornvännen 103 (2008), 245–59, at 252–5.

⁹⁴T.J.T. Williams, ‘Landscape and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England and the Viking Campaign of 1006’, EME 23 (2015), 329–59, esp. 339–58.

⁹⁵Halsall, Warfare and Society, 146 and 154–6.

⁹⁶ASC 1006–7 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 91–2).

⁹⁷Keynes, Atlas, table LXII; ASC 1008 CDE (ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe, 92).

⁹⁸As elsewhere, there are clear Alfredian precedents: Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 141–76.

⁹⁹Brooks, ‘Weapons and Armour’, 172–4. See also Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 111–29.

¹⁰⁰R. Abels, ‘English Logistics and Military Administration 871–1066: The Impact of the Viking Wars’, in Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 1–1300, ed. A.N. Jørgensen and B.L. Clausen (Copenhagen, 1997), 257–65, esp. 262–3.

¹⁰¹J.L. Nelson, ‘The Frankish Empire’, in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, ed. P.[H.] Sawyer (Oxford, 1997), 19–47; K.-U. Jäschke, Burgenbau und Landesverteidigung um 900. Überlegungen zu Beispielen aus Deutschland, Frankreich und England, Vorträge und Forschungen: Sonderband 16 (Sigmaringen, 1975); E.J. Schoenfeld, ‘Anglo-Saxon Burhs and Continental Burgen: Early Medieval Fortifications in Constitutional Perspective’, HSJ 6 (1994), 49–66; B.S. Bachrach and D.[S.] Bachrach, ‘Saxon Military Revolution, 912–973?: Myth and Reality’, EME 15 (2007), 186–222; D.S. Bachrach, Warfare in Tenth-Century Germany (Woodbridge, 2012), 15–38.

¹⁰²S 912 (StAlb 11); with Charters of St Albans, ed. Crick, 183–4 and 186.

¹⁰³Keynes, Diplomas, 108, n. 73. See further R. Naismith, ‘Payments for Land and Privilege in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 41(2012), 277–342, at 293–4.

¹⁰⁴S 915 (Abing 134), S 916 (StAlb 12). See above, pp. 190–1, on the Leofsige case.

¹⁰⁵S 919 (KCD 725). Cf. Naismith, ‘Payments for Land’, 311–12.

¹⁰⁶S 943 (ed. Hart, Charters of Eastern England, 190–1).

¹⁰⁷Naismith, ‘Payments for Land’; Roach, Kingship and Consent, 94–5 and 98–9.

¹⁰⁸S 882 (CantCC 134), S 1488 (Abing 133). Ælfric’s will also refers to a debt owed by the men of Kent to the archbishop; this too could refer to tribute payments on their behalf.

¹⁰⁹J. Gillingham, ‘“The Most Precious Jewel in the English Crown”: Levels of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Early Eleventh Century’, EHR 104 (1989), 373–84, and ‘Chronicles and Coins as Evidence for Levels of Tribute and Taxation in Late Tenth- and Early Eleventh-Century England’, EHR 105 (1990), 939–50. Cf. Lawson, ‘Levels of Taxation’, and ‘Danegeld and Heregeld Once More’, EHR 105 (1990), 951–61.

¹¹⁰See above, Chapter 4, p. 176.

¹¹¹M.K. Lawson, ‘The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns of Aethelred II and Cnut’, EHR 99 (1984), 721–38. See also D.M. Metcalf, ‘Large Danegelds in Relation to War and Kingship: Their Implications for Monetary History, and Some Numismatic Evidence’, in Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. S.C. Hawkes (Oxford, 1989), 179–89.

¹¹²A. Wareham, ‘Fiscal Policies and the Institution of a Tax State in Anglo-Saxon England within a Comparative Context’, Economic History Review 65 (2012), 910–31. Though we do not know the revenue on royal lands at this point, recent assessments place those of Edward the Confessor at just under 8,100 pounds per annum, and a figure in this order of magnitude seems likely: Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 125–51. Cf. R. Naismith, Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms, 757–865 (Cambridge, 2012), 43–6, on minting profits, which were probably much lower than Wareham presumes.

¹¹³Keynes, ‘Historical Context’, 100–1. A similar distinction is made between tributum and locarium by continental chroniclers: Coupland, ‘Poachers to Gamekeepers’, 101–2.

¹¹⁴Wulfstan, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, (EI) ll. 32–3 and 40–2 (ed. Bethurum, 268); Hemingi chartularium ecclesiæ Wigorniensis, ed. T. Hearne, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1723), I, 248–9.

¹¹⁵M. Lintzel, ‘Die Schlacht von Riade und die Anfänge des deutschen Staates’, Sachsen und Anhalt 9 (1933), 27–51, at 43–4. Cf. Bachrach and Bachrach, ‘Saxon Military Revolution’, 220–2, whose argument that Widukind of Corvey only refers to ‘gifts’ (munera) not ‘tribute’ (tributum) in connection with the Magyars takes insufficient account of his reference to how, after victory, Henry ordered the tributum, which would have been paid to maintain the peace, be allocated to the church and poor: Widukind of Corvey, Res gestae Saxonicae I.39, ed. H.-E. Lohmann and P. Hirsch, MGH: SS rer. Germ. 60 (Hannover, 1935), 57–8.

¹¹⁶Blackburn and Jonsson, ‘Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Element’; Blackburn, ‘Æthelred’s Coinage’, 165–6. See also D.M. Metcalf, ‘Inflows of Anglo-Saxon and German Coins into the Northern Lands c. 997–1024: Discerning the Patterns’, in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald, ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden, 2006), 349–88.

¹¹⁷S 943 (ed. Hart, Charters of Eastern England, 190–1), S 915 (Abing 134); with Naismith, ‘Payments for Land’, 311–12. Cf. Murray, Reason and Society, 30–5.

¹¹⁸II Atr 7.2 (ed. Liebermann, I, 224).

¹¹⁹Ælfric, Supplementary Homilies XIII.67–71 (ed. Pope, 500). Cf. Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Pope, 508.

¹²⁰Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. D. Whitelock, 3^rd edn (London, 1963), 35, n. 2; Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 172–7.

¹²¹De tribulationibus, ed. and trans. Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 174–5.

¹²²S 912 (StAlb 11). See Charters of St Albans, ed. Crick, 186–7.

¹²³S 916 (StAlb 12).

¹²⁴Charters of St Albans, ed. Crick, 18, 20–2 and 186–7.

¹²⁵Matthew Paris, Chronica majora: additamenta, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series (London, 1882), 387.

¹²⁶S 919 (KCD 725), S 920 (Burt 31), S 921 (KCD 1306).

¹²⁷S 921 (KCD 1306).

¹²⁸Lionarons, Homiletic Writings. See also M.McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), 18–22 and 105–28.

¹²⁹EGu (ed. Liebermann, I, 128–35); Canons of Edgar (ed. Whitelock, Councils, no. 48, 313–38); with K. Jost, ‘Einige Wulfstantexte und ihre Quellen’, Anglia 56 (1932), 265–315, at 288–301; and D. Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan and the So-Called Laws of Edward and Guthrum’ (1941), repr. in and cited from her History, Law and Literature in 10th–11th Century England (London, 1981), no. IX.

¹³⁰V Atr (ed. Liebermann, I, 236–47; ed. Whitelock, Councils, no. 49.i, 344–62), VI Atr (Lat) (ed. Liebermann, I, 247–59; ed. Whitelock, Councils, no. 49.ii, 362–73); VI Atr (ed. Liebermann, I, 246–58) (Liebermann’s edition offers the Latin and Old English of VI Atr on facing pages).

¹³¹P. Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, in Ethelred the Unready, ed. D.[H.] Hill (London, 1978), 47–80, at 49–52. Cf. N.R. Ker, ‘The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan’, in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), 315–31.

¹³²K. Jost, Wulfstanstudien, Schweizer anglistische Arbeiten 23 (Bern, 1950), 35–43; K. Sisam, ‘The Relationship of Æthelred’s Codes V and VI’, in his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), 278–87; Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, 50–8; Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 177–8.

¹³³Stafford, ‘Royal Government’, 215–70. Cf. Roach, ‘Law-Codes’.

¹³⁴Cf. M.K. Lawson, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the Homiletic Element in the Laws of Æthelred II and Cnut’, EHR 107 (1992), 565–86, esp. 572–9. For a more judicious assessment, see Hudson, Oxford History, 19.

¹³⁵It has been suggested that the mention of Edward’s feast day is a later interpolation, since it is not found in either VI Atr or the Latin Relatio. However, Edward’s cult was well established by this point, so there is no reason to doubt that the reference is original. See Keynes, ‘An Abbot’, 178–9; and cf. Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, 53–4, and Making of English Law, 343–4; and Williams, Æthelred, 15.

¹³⁶P. Wormald, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan: Eleventh-Century State Builder’, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout, 2004), 9–27.

¹³⁷Roach, ‘Tale of Two Charters’.

¹³⁸Although bridgework is only mentioned in one of the surviving witnesses to V Atr, there is reason to believe that it is original: Wormald, ‘Æthelred the Lawmaker’, 50 (and cf. ibid., 52–3). See further N. Brooks, ‘The Development of Military Obligations in Eighth- and Ninth-Century England’ (1971), repr. in and cited from his Communities and Warfare, 700–1400 (London, 2000), 32–47.

¹³⁹Keynes, Diplomas, 204–6; R. Abels, ‘Cowardice and Duty in Anglo-Saxon England’, Journal of Medieval Military History 6 (2006), 29–48, at 47–8.

¹⁴⁰D.[H.] Hill, ‘Trends in the Development of Towns in the Reign of Ethelred II’, in Ethelred the Unready, ed. D.[H.] Hill (London, 1978), 213–26; L. Alcock, Cadbury Castle: The Early Medieval Archaeology (Cardiff, 1995), 165–9.

¹⁴¹Baker and Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 80–3 and 85. However, see J. Haslam, ‘Daws Castle, Somerset, and Civil Defence Measures in Southern and Midland England in the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries’, Archaeological Journal 168 (2011), 195–227, at 210–17, for caveats.

¹⁴²R.J.C. Atkinson, ‘Silbury Hill, 1969–70’, Antiquity 44 (1970), 313–14; J. Pollard and A. Reynolds, Avebury: The Biography of a Landscape (Stroud, 2002), 226–7.

¹⁴³Haslam, ‘Daws Castle’, 204–6.

¹⁴⁴P. Rainbird and D. Druce, ‘A Late Saxon Date from Oldaport’, Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society 62 (2004), 177–80. See also Gore, Vikings, 64–5.

¹⁴⁵Baker and Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 355–8.

¹⁴⁶Ibid., 398–9.

¹⁴⁷B. Watson, T. Brigham and T. Dyson, London Bridge: 2000 Years of a River Crossing (London, 2001), 53–7; R.H. Leech, ‘Arthur’s Acre: A Saxon Bridgehead at Bristol’, Trans. of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Soc. 127 (2009), 11–20, at 16–17. Cf. S. Coupland, ‘The Fortified Bridges of Charles the Bald’, Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991), 1–12.

¹⁴⁸S 869 (WinchNM 30) (from 988), S 874 (KCD 673) (from 990); with Keynes, Diplomas, 93–4.

¹⁴⁹Wulfstan. Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen über ihre Echtheit, I, Text und Varianten, ed. A.S. Napier (Berlin, 1883), no. 51, 274–5; with Jost, Wulfstanstudien, 104–9. See also Wormald, Making of English Law, 337, n. 344; and A. Rabin, The Political Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (Manchester, 2015), 14 and 127.

¹⁵⁰Lawson, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan’, 575–6.

¹⁵¹V Atr 11.1, 12.3, 17 (ed. Liebermann, I, 240–1). Cf. II Eg 2.3, 3, 5 (ed. Liebermann, I, 196–200). Note also the possible verbal parallel at V Atr 15 (ed. Liebermann, I, 240–1), ‘swa swa þe heoldon þa ðe betst heoldon’; and II Eg 5.3 (ed. Liebermann I, 200), ‘swa swa hit betst stod’.

¹⁵²P. Wormald, ‘A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Lawsuits’ (1986), repr. in and cited from his Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: Law as Text, Image and Experience (London, 1999), 253–87, esp. 286.

¹⁵³Stenton, Latin Charters, 74–82; Keynes, Diplomas, 200–2. See also Stafford, ‘Royal Government’, 62–70; and Keynes, ‘Crime and Punishment’, 76–7.

¹⁵⁴S 877 (WinchNM 31). See R. Abels, ‘“The Crimes by which Wulfbald Ruined Himself with His Lord”: The Limits of State Action in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Reading Medieval Studies 40 (2014), 42–53.

¹⁵⁵The phrase is that of Whitelock, EHD, 47.

¹⁵⁶S. Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300, 2^nd edn (Oxford, 1997), is now the classic statement. See also B. Schneidmüller, ‘Rule by Consensus: Forms and Concepts of Political Order in the European Middle Ages’, Medieval History Journal 16 (2013), 449–71.

¹⁵⁷III As 6 (Liebermann, I, 170), IV As 3 (Liebermann, I, 171), VI As 8.2 (Liebermann, I, 178).

¹⁵⁸Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, 151–2. Cf. Abels, ‘Limits’, 49.

¹⁵⁹J.L. Nelson, ‘Rulers and Government’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, III, c. 900–1024, ed. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), 95–129, at 123.

¹⁶⁰S 877 (WinchNM 31), S 886 (Abing 126), S 893 (Roch 32), S 927 (Abing 136).

¹⁶¹S 892 (ed. A.S. Napier and W.H. Stevenson, The Crawford Collection of Early Chapters and Documents [Oxford, 1895], no. 8), S 893 (Roch 32), S 916 (StAlb 12).

¹⁶²S 926 (Roch 33).

¹⁶³S 901 (Abing 132) (forfeiture for adultery), S 927 (Abing 136) (Leofric’s crimes included adultery). Cf. S 911 (KCD 714) (forfeiture of the matrona Leoftæt ‘on account of her improper behaviour’).

¹⁶⁴S 362 (BCS 595). See Pratt, Political Thought, 33–4, 235–6 and 239.

¹⁶⁵S 939 (CantCC 137), S 927 (Abing 136), S 934 (Abing 137).

¹⁶⁶Lawson, ‘Collection’, 723–6 (who is aware of the limitations of his evidence, especially where Æthelred’s reign is concerned). Cf. ibid., 732–4.

¹⁶⁷Williams, Æthelred, 64–6; Molyneaux, Formation, 157–72 and 179–82. Cf. C.S. Taylor, ‘The Origin of the Mercian Shires’, in Gloucestershire Studies, ed. H.P.R. Finberg (Leicester, 1957), 17–45.

¹⁶⁸J. Campbell, ‘The Late Anglo-Saxon State: A Maximum View’ (1994), repr. in and cited from his The Anglo-Saxon State (London, 2000), 1–30. See also P. Wormald, ‘Germanic Power Structures: The Early English Experience’, in Power and the Nation in European History, ed. L. Scales and O. Zimmer (Cambridge, 2005), 105–24.

¹⁶⁹F. Mazel, Féodalités, 888–1180 (Paris, 2010), 17–97; S. Weinfurter, ‘Die Zentralisierung der Herrschaftsgewalt im Reich durch Kaiser Heinrich II.’ (1986), repr. in and cited from his Gelebte Ordnung, gedachte Ordnung. Ausgewählte Beiträge zu König, Kirche und Reich (Sigmaringen, 2005), 213–64.

¹⁷⁰Lantfred of Winchester, Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, ch. 25, ed. M. Lapidge, The Cult of Saint Swithun (Oxford, 2003), 308–10. On the dating, see Hudson, ‘Æthelwold’s Circle’, 97, n. 40.

¹⁷¹Molyneaux, Formation, 216–30. Cf. Reuter, ‘Ottonian Ruler Representation’, 133.

¹⁷²C. Cubitt, ‘Personal Names, Identity and Family in Benedictine Reform England’, in Verwandschaft, Name und soziale Ordnung (300–1000), ed. S. Patzold and K. Ubl (Berlin, 2014), 223–42, at 230–7.

¹⁷³A. Rabin, ‘Wulfstan at London: Episcopal Politics in the Reign of Æthelred’, English Studies 97 (2016), 186–206.

¹⁷⁴Wulfstan, Secundum Lucam, ll. 14–22 (ed. Bethurum, 123–4). See also De temporibus Antichristi, ll. 74–9 (ed. Bethurum, 132), and Secundum Marcum ll. 23–7 and 36–52 (ed. Bethurum, 135, 136–7).

¹⁷⁵Wulfstan, ed. Napier, no. 42, 191–205; with R.K. Emerson, ‘From epistola to sermo: The Old English Version of Adso’s Libellus de Antichristo’, JEGP 83 (1983), 1–10, esp. 5–10.

¹⁷⁶R. Gameson, ‘The Origin of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry’, ASE 25 (1996), 135–85, at 170–2.

¹⁷⁷Ælfric, CH: FS, prol.57–9 (ed. Clemoes, 174).

¹⁷⁸Ælfric, CH: FS XXXIX.1–17 (ed. Clemoes, 520).

¹⁷⁹M. Godden, ‘The Millennium, Time, and History for the Anglo-Saxons’, in The Apocalyptic Year 1000, ed. R. Landes, A. Gow and D.C. Van Meter (Oxford, 2003), 155–80, at 158–67. Cf. R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine, 2^nd edn (Cambridge, 1989), 22–44.

¹⁸⁰Councils, ed. Whitelock, no. 41, 227–9. See above Chapter 4, pp. 156–7, with n. 64. This allusion may have been inspired by Alcuin, whose letter to Eanbald provided the model for the rest of the epistle, since he frequently had recourse to the phrase elsewhere: W. Brandes, ‘“Tempora periculosa sunt”. Eschatologisches im Vorfeld der Kaiserkrönung Karls des Großen’, in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794. Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur, ed. R. Berndt, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1997), I, 49–79; M. Garrison, ‘The Bible and Alcuin’s Interpretation of Current Events’, Peritia 16 (2002), 68–84.

¹⁸¹S 895 (Sherb 11). Cf. Ælfric, CH: SS XXIII.30 (ed. Godden, 214), and Supplementary Homilies XX.392–9 (ed. Pope, 658–9).

¹⁸²S 671 (Roch 29). See Keynes, ‘Church of Rochester’, 334–6.

¹⁸³S 894 (ed. B. Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicum Ævi Saxonici [London, 1865], 296–8): ‘scimus namque ultimis temporibus simultates crebrescere, discordias ebullire, rapacitates inardescere, amicitiam titubare, caritatem refrigescere multorum, et inaudita mala evenire’. Although this document may have been forged on the basis of S 895, the phrase in question was not lifted from its exemplar thus seems to represent an authentic voice of the late 990s: Charters of Sherborne, ed. O’Donovan, xix and 42.

¹⁸⁴S 899 (Shaft 29).

¹⁸⁵S 904 (KCD 707), S 906 (Burt 28). This quotation is found in Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos, ch. 8, ed. R. Gryson, CCSL 121A (Turnhout, 2001), 309; and Wulfstan, Her gongynð be Cristendome, ll. 115–17 (ed. Bethurum, 206). (As Lionarons, Homiletic Writings, 101, notes, Wulfstan inserted an exhortation to receive absolution from a bishop at this point in one of his manuscripts of this work.)

¹⁸⁶Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos, ch. 4 (ed. Gryson, 269–71); Ælfric, CH: FS XXXV.122–32 (ed. Clemoes, 480), with Godden, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, 289–98.

¹⁸⁷S 911 (KCD 714). See further above, pp. 204–5.

¹⁸⁸P. Jackson, ‘Medieval Christendom’s Encounter with the Alien’, Historical Research 74 (2001), 347–69; R.E. Lerner, ‘The Black Death and Western European Eschatological Mentalities’, American Historical Review 86 (1981), 533–52.

¹⁸⁹Epistola de Hungariis, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, Serta mediaevalia. Textus varii saeculorum X–XIII in unum collecti, CCCM 171A (Turnhout, 2000), 46–55; with J. Fried, ‘Endzeiterwartung um die Jahrtausendwende’, DA 45 (1989), 381–473, at 384–7.

¹⁹⁰See, e.g., S. Gouguenheim, Les fausses terreurs de l’an mil. Attente de la fin des temps ou approfondissement de la foi? (Paris, 1999); R. Landes, ‘The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modern’, Speculum 75 (2000), 97–145; J. Fried, ‘Die Endzeit fest im Griff des Positivismus? Zur Auseinandersetzung mit Sylvain Gouguenheim’, HZ 275 (2002), 281–321; and J. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2014), 189–226.

¹⁹¹Ælfric, LS XII.294–7 (ed. Skeat, 304): ‘Þes tima is ende-next and ende þyssere æorulde. and menn beoð geworhte wolice him betwynan . swa þæt se fæder winð wið his agenne sunu. and broðor wið oþerne to bealwe him sylfum.’ See Godden, ‘Apocalypse and Invasion’, 136–7.

¹⁹²Wulfstan, Secundum Marcum ll. 36–47 (ed. Bethurum, 136–7): ‘mycel is seo þwyrnes þe nu is towerd, gebide ðære yrmðe se þe hit gebide, þæt Antecrist geboren beo. Crist wæs ealra bearna betst geboren þe æfre geboren wurde, 7 antecrist bið ealra þæra bearna wyrst on þas woruld geboren þe ær oððe æfter æfre gewurde oððe geweorðe. Nu sceal hit nyde yfelian swyðe, forðam þe hit nealæcð georne his timan, ealswa hit awriten is 7 gefyrn wæs gewitegod: Post mille Annos soluetur satanas; þæt is on englisc, Æfter þusend gearum bið satanas unbunden. Þusend geara 7 eac ma is nu agan syððan crist wæs mid mannum on menniscan hiwe, 7 nu syndon satanases bendas swyðe toslopene, 7 antecristes tima is wel gehende.’

¹⁹³J. Hill, ‘Ælfric and Wulfstan: Two Views of the Millennium’, in Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy, ed. J. Roberts and J.[L.] Nelson (Woodbridge, 2000), 213–35, at 234–5; A. Lainé, ‘L’Antéchrist dans les homélies eschatologiques de Wulfstan: un mal du siècle’, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 26 (2000), 173–87, at 175–6.

¹⁹⁴The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. S. Keynes, EEMF 26 (Copenhagen, 1996), 99; D.N. Dumville, Liturgy and Ecclesiastical History in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies (Woodbridge, 1992), 44; Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, ed. B. Günzel, HBS 108 (Woodbridge, 1993), 72–4 and 143–4.

¹⁹⁵S 912 (StAlb 11). Cf. S 917 (Burt 30) and S 1664 (unpublished); with Charters of Burton, ed. Sawyer, 57; and Charters of St Albans, ed. Crick, 183.

¹⁹⁶C. Cubitt, ‘Apocalyptic and Eschatological Thought in England around the Year 1000’, TRHS 6th ser. 25 (2015), 27–52. Cf. W. Prideaux-Collins, ‘“Satan’s Bonds are Extremely Loose”: Apocalyptic Expectation in Anglo-Saxon England during the Millennial Era’, in The Apocalyptic Year 1000, ed. R. Landes, A. Gow and D.C. Van Meter (Oxford, 2003), 289–310.

¹⁹⁷Byrhtferth, Enchiridion IV.2 (ed. Baker and Lapidge, 236–40). On Abbo, see Fried, ‘Endzeiterwartung’, 422–3; and cf. Byrhtferth, Enchiridion IV.1 (ed. Baker and Lapidge, 228–30).

¹⁹⁸Garrison, ‘The Bible’.

¹⁹⁹Godden, ‘Apocalypse and Invasion’, 142–62. See also Godden, ‘The Millennium’, 167–77.

²⁰⁰Wulfstan, ed. Napier, no. 50, 266–74; with J.T. Lionarons, ‘Napier Homily L: Wulfstan’s Eschatology at the Close of his Career’, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout, 2004), 413–28. See also M. Godden, ‘The Relations of Wulfstan and Ælfric: A Reassessment’, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout, 2004), 353–74, at 369–70; S.[M.] Pons-Sanz, Norse-Derived Vocabulary in Late Old English Texts: Wulfstan’s Works, A Case Study (Odense, 2007), 19–20; and Cubitt, ‘Eschatological Thought’, 46–50.

²⁰¹P. Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror: Christianity, Violence, and the West (Philadelphia, PA, 2015), 253–61 and 278–9.

²⁰²Lainé, ‘L’Antéchrist’, 177–8 and 183–5; Roach, ‘Apocalypse and Atonement’. Cf. Palmer, Apocalypse, 213–14, noting that the lack of access to Pseudo-Methodius in pre-Conquest England may also explain Wulfstan’s reticence where Gog and Magog are concerned.

²⁰³For different perspectives, see N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, 2^nd edn (London, 1970); and Buc, Holy War, esp. 67–89.

²⁰⁴Cf. S. Keynes, ‘Apocalypse Then: England, A.D. 1000’, in Europe around the Year 1000, ed. P. Urbańczyk (Warsaw, 2001), 247–70, at 260.