While a full description of Northumbria’s surviving English nobility is out of reach, at least one point about the early–tenth-century north is clear. It came to be dominated by another Edwardian family named by Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. This is the family of Eadwulf, whom we will refer to as the Eadwulfings. Neither Eadwulf nor his named sons are given titles in Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. While they might appear at first glance to be no different from the families of Ricsige and Brihtwulf, Southumbrian and Irish annals show them to be figures of particular importance. Eadwulf is ‘Eadwulf King of the Northern English’ (Etulbb ri Saxan Tuaiscirt) in the Annals of Ulster s.a. 913, a year matched by
Æthelweard’s obit of Aðulf, who ‘as actor presided over the fortress of Bamburgh’ (præerat
149 Sawyer, no. 403; PASE, s.v. ‘Alfred 18 (fl. 930-931)’. 150
Sawyer, nos 379, 393, 403, 405, 407, 410, 412–13, 416–18, 422–23, 425, 428, 450; Hart, Danelaw, 572, n. 7; see also PASE, s v. ‘Ælfstan 27’ (the ealdorman), but note also ‘Ælfstan 28’ and ‘Ælfstan 29’.
151
Sawyer, nos 405, 412–13, 416, 418, 423, 425; see also PASE, s.v. ’Æscberht 3’.
152
Hart, Danelaw, 121, on the basis of witness-position succession; but contrast B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), 100 (following L. N. Banton, Ealdormen and Earls in England from the Reign of King Alfred to the Reign of King Æthelred II (University of Oxford D. Phil thesis, 1981), 197–214); they have, apparently, rejected any role for Æscbriht as ealdorman of western Wessex.
actori oppidi Bebbanburgh condicti).153 In ASC MS A s.a. 920, the sons of Eadwulf are listed among a number of the most significant ‘kings’ we know otherwise to have ruled in Britain north of Edward the Elder’s territory, though the West Saxon annalist did not give titles to either Rognvald or Eadwulf’s sons. Æthelweard’s account, at least in its completed form, is from the later tenth century. The unusual terminology may suggest that Æthelweard’s West Saxon predecessors saw Eadwulf’s kingship along the lines of that exercised by ‘Ealdorman’ Æthelred of Mercia, a king who acknowledged the overlordship of Edward the Elder; Æthelweard was prepared to call the Æthelred both king (rex) and ealdorman (dux), as well as superstes.154 Even in Historia de Sancto Cuthberto it is said that Rognvald occupied the territory of the sons of Eadwulf, and it is suggested that Ælfred son of Brihtwulf had been a dependent of Eadwulf’s son Ealdred.155
The account of the Eamotum meeting in ASC MS D s.a. 926 (recte 927), following Æthelstan’s assumption of Sigtrygg’s position, could be read to show that Æthelstan had brought the contracted Regnum Saxan Aquilonalium under his sway. Yet, among ‘all the kings who were in this island’ taken under his overlordship, ‘Ealdred son of Eadwulf from Bamburgh’ (Ealdred Ealdulfing from Bebbanbyrig, where Ealdulf is a scribal error for Eadulf) is listed after those known to have been kings in Wales and Scotland. If the reader did not know any better, Ealdred would just be another ruler whose presence added extra authority to Æthelstan’s gathering. Our ability to reconstruct the position of the Northern English realm at this stage is complicated by complex and contradictory surviving textual evidence. SomeAnglo-Latin versions of this annal claim that Æthelstan expelled Ealdred from
Bamburgh instead of simply listing Ealdred (like ASC MS D does): a significant discrepancy.156 In contrast to the D version, MS E has a notice s.a. 927 that Æthelstan had to expel Guthfrith (Sigtrygg’s dynastic successor) from the kingdom. It is possible that the Anglo-Latin versions in question, Chronicon ex Chronicis, Roger of Wendover, and their followers, had tried to integrate each of these entries and in doing so produced this confusion; i.e. Guthfrith’s
153 AU, s.a. 913; see also FA 456, s.a. 912 (recte 913) Etalbh, rí Saxan tuaisgirt; Æthelweard, 52–53: iv.4. 154
For rex, see Æthelweard, 50, for dux, p. 46; see also p. 53 for Mycriorum superstes (‘survivor of the Mercians’), translated by Campbell as ‘lord of the Mercians’; generally, unstable or unusual vocabulary to describe the position of a potentate indicates that the position was hard to reconcile with the author’s mental order of things; see also M. Davidson, ‘The (Non)Submission of the Northern Kings in 920’, in Edward the Elder, 200–11, at 203–05; and Woolf, Pictland-Alba, 147.
155 HSC, 60–61: c.22. 156
JW, II, 386–87; RW, I, 386; the Roger of Wendover version has Ælfred (Alfredum), probably a scribal error (recte Aldredum).
expulsion was merged with the Eamotum meeting, and a side-effect was that from Bebbanbyrig had the verb ‘expelled’ (exturbauit) added to it.157 This cannot be the whole picture, however. William of Malmesbury appears to have had access to a fuller account of this episode (or at least a fuller narrative about the reign of Æthelstan), and names a ‘rebel’ in the north. He supplies what appears to be the name ‘Ealdwulf’ (Aldulfi) rather than Ealdred.158 This would be in harmony with other evidence, namely Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (below) and charter attestations, which indicate Ealdred had a positive
relationship with Æthelstan; a positive relationship that was, perhaps, one not shared with
Aldulf.
Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, which mentions two of Eadwulf’s sons, describes Ealdred as Edward the Elder’s dilectus, ‘esteemed one’; the Historia also notes that Ealdred’s father Eadwulf had been the dilectus of Ælfred. According to Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, Ealdred was expelled by Rognvald, fled to Scotland, and returned with the Scottish king Causantín only to suffer defeat at the Battle of Corbridge. Despite the death of most of the English who participated in the battle, the Historia says that Ealdred and his brother Uhtred managed to survive, though it sheds no light on their later activity. There has however been a large body of opinion identifying Ealdred and Uhtred with two like- named duces noted in early tenth-century Anglo-Saxon charters. With one exception, they are placed next to each other in the witness lists of these charters.159 Ealdred attested charters until 933; Uhtred remained one of the most frequent ‘ducal’ subscribers of charters until Æthelstan’s death in 939. Of the two Uhtred duces from the reign of Æthelstan, there is no way to tell for certain which if either of them survived into the reign of Edgar, so Uhtred of Bamburgh’s survival as far as 958 is an outside possibility.160
According to two charters of 926, men named Ealdred minister and Uhtred had purchased land in the Danelaw under the authority of Edward the Elder and ‘Ealdorman’ Æthelred of Mercia (†911).161 The documents survive from two different archives, but were
157
E.g. JW, II, 386; RW, I, 386.
158 GRA, 206–07: ii.131. 159
Charters they appear in together are Sawyer, nos 403, 412–13, 416–17, 418–19; no. 413 is the exception.
160
Hart, ECNE, 362; BDDAB, s.v. ‘Uhtred Ealdorman 930–c.949’, 230.
161 For Uhtred’s charter, see Sawyer, no. 397, and Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. P. H. Sawyer (Oxford, 1979),
no. 3; for Ealdred’s charter, see Sawyer, no. 396, and Charters of Abingdon, ed. S. E. Kelly (Oxford, 2000–2001), no. 21.
probably issued at the same time.162 Although their paternity is not specified, historians have generally identified them as the above Eadwulfings.163 If this were accurate, it would point to collusion between the Ecgberhtings and Eadwulfings during the lifetime of Eadwulf himself. Without stretching matters too thinly, this might lead to suspicions that Eadwulf emerged as ruler of the ‘Northern English’ under West Saxon sponsorship. Indeed it is not impossible that the family was imposed on Northumbria in this or the following decade by the Ecgberhtings. Perhaps they returned with Ecgberhting support having been exiled (or hostage) Northumbrians; or even as a West Saxon or Mercian agnatic group, perhaps one claiming power through some cognatic link. Such beneficiaries of Ecgberhting political strategy could be linked to the Peace of Tiddingford in 906, which coincided with the end of royally-inscribed Danelaw coinage. Judging by Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, in 918Ealdred and Uhtred were expelled by Rognvald from lands south of the Tyne. Since no source can be used to associate the family with Bamburgh before 918 with certainty (Æthelweard’s link to Bamburgh may be his own anachronism), it is possible that their power in the region was relatively new.
A pedigree of Earl Waltheof (†1076) from the Anglo-Norman era may shed some light. Waltheof’s genealogy forms part of De Northumbria post Britannos, a twelfth-century text that appears to have had access to earlier sources.164 Eadwulf was claimed as the ancestor of Waltheof son of Siward. In the genealogy it is stated that Eadwulf was the son of Æthelthryth, daughter of King Ælla. If this genealogy were accurate, Eadwulf’s father had come from a family with weak links to the Northumbrian royal line, but one who
subsequently used marriage to Ælla’s daughter as a means of projecting or at least
legitimizing lordship over the Northumbrian English political community.165 Such anyway is what the text’s detail appears to suggest. The genealogy would also indicate that the three
162
Stenton, Types of Manorial Structure, 74–75; S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred 'The Unready' (Cambridge, 1980), 42–43;
163 The Crawford Collection, edd. A.S. Napier and W.H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1895), 74–75; P. H. Sawyer, ‘The
Charters of Burton Abbey and the Unification of England’, NH 10 (1973), 28–39, at 33–34; BDDAB, s.v. ‘Ealdred of Bamburgh 913–c.930’, 116–17.
164 DNPB, 32–34. 165
There is other evidence for a powerful female figure in Northumbria during this era. The ‘widow of Whittingham’, said by Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis, Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, and related accounts to have owned the future king Guthred as a slave. If the story were true and this ‘widow’ (uidua) were able to hold someone of such rank in captivity and then force payment from the Scandinavian army, such a figure must have been able to command considerable power.
kings of the Northumbrians named by the Irish annals came from the same family, from the death of Ælla in 867 to the death of his grandson Adulf mcEtulf in 934.166