Æthelred (Mercia)

Anglo-Saxon England

Family tree Æthelreds

Æthelred († 716 in Bardney ) was king of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia from 675-704. Æthelred was a son of King Pendas and younger brother of Wulfhere , whom he succeeded as king after Wulfhere had fallen under their king Æscwine in 675 in the battle of Biedanheafde against the troops of Wessex ' .

In the same year, Æthelred founded the Breedon-on-the-Hill monastery, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and Saint Hardulf . In 676 King Æscwine of Wessex died and Æthelred invaded the Kingdom of Kent and devastated it to such an extent that two successive bishops of the Diocese of Rochester gave up their office due to insufficient income.

Æthelred was able to extend his influence temporarily to the area of ​​Wessex ', as he could install a Merzian bishop in Dorchester-on-Thames , where the first bishops of the West Saxons had their seat. In addition, Æthelred is associated with the founding of the Abingdon Abbey .

The kingdom of the Hwicce came into the sphere of influence of Æthlred, since his nephew Berhtwald could give land to Bishop Aldhelm von Sherborne in the area of ​​the kingdom of Hwicce in 685 .

At the beginning of his reign, Æthelred approached Northumbria. He married Osthryth , the sister of the Northumbrian king Ecgfrith - but soon afterwards there were again disagreements between the two kingdoms, presumably over the possession of the kingdom of Lindsey , which again led to war. In 679 there was a battle on the River Trent , which Æthelred was victorious and incorporated the previously relatively independent kingdom of Lindsey Mercia. However, on the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodor von Tarsus , he had to pay Ecgfrith Wergeld for the death of his brother Ælfwine , who had died in the battle. As a result, Æthelred expanded his dominance over the south of England, in 688 he installed Oswine as a devoted king in Kent.

Æthelred managed to shake off the last remnants of Northumbria's supremacy over Mercia, to consolidate his domain, to expand it to the east and to integrate the Kingdom of Lindsey into Mercia. The supremacy over the various areas and territories that Æthelred exercised is evident from a unique document, the so-called tribal hidage , commonly dated to the second half of the seventh century. The Tribal Hidage is a list of named areas and territories, the size of which is given according to the number of their hooves . Since this listing starts with Mercia, which also has by far the largest number of hooves, and focuses on the Midlands, with other areas on the outskirts of the Midlands being mentioned, this suggests that this is a list of Mercia dependent rulers, before their full integration into the growing Mercia, acts. The southern kingdoms, on the other hand, began to evade Mercia's control, and so there were constant clashes with the growing Wessex.

In 697 Æthelred's wife Ostryth was murdered by mercian nobles. She was buried in Bardney Monastery and later venerated as a saint. The reason for her murder is unclear. It is possible, however, that she conspired with her son Oshere to solve the kingdom of the Hwicce from Mercia. In the year 704 Æthelred finally resigned as king to retire as abbot in Bardney monastery, as his successor he appointed Wulfheres son Cenred . Æthelred died twelve years later in Bardney.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ASC , s. a. 675
2. ^ B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, p. 106
3. ^ FM Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England , p.68f
4. ^ P. 1169
5. ↑ HE , IV, 21; Vita Wilfredi , c. 24
6. ^ NJ Higham, The Kingdom of Northumbria , p. 139
7. ^ David Dumville, The Tribal Hidage: an Introduction to its Texts and their History , p. 229
8. ^ JM Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent, pp. 27-32
9. ↑ ASC , s. a. 697
10. ^ HPR Finnberg, The Early Charters of the West Midlands , p. 176f
11. ↑ ASC , s. a. 716

literature

swell

• Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Peter Hayes Sawyer (Ed.), Royal Historical Society, London 1968, ISBN 0-901050-18-0 .
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: MS A v. 3 , Janet Bately (Ed.), Brewer, Rochester (NY) 1986, ISBN 0-85991-103-9 .
• Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People , B. Colgrave & RAB Mynors (Eds.), Clarendon, Oxford 1969, ISBN 0-19-822202-5 .
• Eddius Stephanus, Vita Wilfredi, Bertram Colgrave (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1927, ISBN 0-521-30927-1 .

Secondary literature

• Steven Basset (Ed.): The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms , Leicester University Press, Leicester 1989, ISBN 0-7185-1317-7 .
• Nicholas Brooks : "The Formation of the Mercian Kingdom" in: Steven Basset (ed.): The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms , Leicester University Press, Leicester 1989, ISBN 0-7185-1317-7 .
• James Campbell (Ed.): The Anglo-Saxons , Phaidon, London 1982, ISBN 0-7148-2149-7 .
• Wendy Davies: "Annals and the Origins of Mercia" in Ann Dornier: Mercian Studies. Leicester University Press, Leicester 1977, ISBN 0-7185-1148-4 .
• Ann Dornier: Mercian Studies. Leicester University Press, Leicester 1977, ISBN 0-7185-1148-4 .
• David Dumville: "Essex, Middle Anglia and the Expansion of Mercia in the South East" in: Steven Basset (Ed.): The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms , Leicester University Press, Leicester 1989, ISBN 0-7185-1317-7 .
• HPR Finnberg: The Early Charters of the West Midlands , Leicester University Press, Leicester 1971, ISBN 0-7185-1024-0 .
• Nicholas J. Higham: The Kingdom of Northumbria. AD 350-1100. Sutton, Stroud 1993, ISBN 0-86299-730-5 .
• Nicholas J. Higham: The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England, Manchester University Press, Manchester 1997, ISBN 0-7190-4827-3 .
• DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings . Unwin Hyman, London 1991, ISBN 0-04-445691-3 .
• Frank M. Stenton: Anglo-Saxon England . 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, ISBN 0-19-280139-2 .
• Ian W. Walker: Mercia and the Making of England . Sutton, Stroud 2000 ISBN 0-7509-2131-5 .
• John M. Wallace-Hadrill: Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent . Clarendon, Oxford 1971, ISBN 0-19-873011-X .
• Barbara Yorke : Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 . PDF (6.2 MB)

Web links

• English website with a list of kings and additional information

predecessor	Office	successor
Wolfhere	King of Mercien 675–704	Cenred