Aldfrith

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Aldfrith (also Aldfrid, Aldfrið, Aldferþ, Alfrið, Aelfrid, Alchfrit, Alhfrithus, Arcircius, Ealdferth, Ealdferð, Ealdferþ, Flann Fína, Flainn Fína maic Ossu ; * before 634; † 14 December 705 ) was in the years 686 to 705 King of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria .

Aldfridus was the first English ruler to have his name struck on coins.

Life

family

Aldfrith was the son of King Oswiu , who on his father's side came from the royal dynasty of Bernicia , and on his mother's side probably from the Deirian royal family. Oswiu was married three times. His first wife or concubine during his exile (616–634) was Fina, a daughter (or granddaughter) of Colman Rimid from the Irish dynasty of the Uí Néill . From this relationship, illegitimate according to Bede, the son Aldfrith emerged. He probably went into a second marriage between 634 and 643 with Rhianmellt from Rheged , a daughter of Royth. His children Ealhfrith and Ealhflæd seem to have come from one of the first two marriages, as Ealhflæd was married to Peada , the king of the middle fishing rods , around the year 653 , and Ealhfrith was certainly grown up when he became sub-king in Deira in 655. Since, in contrast to Aldfrith, they were not called illegitimate, they are often seen as the children of Oswius with Rhianmellt. Eventually Oswiu married his cousin Eanflæd around 643 with whom he had several children: the son Ecgfrith (* around 645), the daughters Ælfflæd (* around 654, abbess of Whitby) and Osthryth and probably also his son Ælfwine (* around 661).

Aldfrith was married to Cuthburg (fl. Around 700-718), who later became the abbess of Wimborne Abbey . She was the daughter of the sub-king Cenred (fl. 670/676-after 705) of Dorset and sister of the important king Ine of Wessex . Aldfrith's sons were Osred I. , Offa († 750) and possibly also Osric (718–729). In religious contexts, Saint Osanna is represented by Jouarre as Aldfrith's daughter. The relationship is rejected as legendary by modern historians.

Youth and Exile

Around 616 Edwin conquered Northumbria and drove the sons of the fallen Æthelfrith into exile as rivals to the throne. Oswald , Oswiu, Æbbe and possibly other siblings went to King Eochaid Bude (608–629) in the Irish-Scottish Empire of Dalriada . Oswius' half-brother Eanfrith moved to the Picts with other siblings . During the reign of his half-brother Ecgfrith (664 / 670-685) Aldfrith remained in exile in Ireland and western Britain. He became familiar with the Celtic culture and was considered a great scholar in Ireland. There he became a student of Abbot Adomnan whom he later followed to the monastery of Iona . In the 680s, Irish and Picts, with whom Aldfrith may be allies, threatened Northumbria to the north and west. In 684 Ecgfrith sent the Ealdorman Beorht on a successful looting expedition to Ireland . In 685 war broke out with the Picts, led by Brude mac Bili. At Nechtansmere , today's Dunnichen , the battle of Dunnichen Mere took place on May 20, 685 . Ecgfrith's forces were ambushed and wiped out; he himself fell in battle. This ended the Northumbrian hegemony in the north as well. The Pictish diocese of Abercorn, founded by Ecgfrith, was abandoned and the river Forth formed the northumbrian northern border.

Domination

Northumbria around AD 700
Penny from Aldfrith

Ecgfrith's corpse was brought to Iona and his half-brother Aldfrith, not least because of the influence of his sister Ælfflæd, was proclaimed king as the successor to Ecgfrith, who had died childless. Aldfrith had led a withdrawn life as a student monk, but after taking power he showed himself to be in a position to politically stabilize the empire, which had been weakened by the defeat against the Picts, and to secure the country a long peace that it had until then Had to do without fighting with his neighbors for a long time. In view of Aldfrith's career, however, it is not surprising that he devoted his special support to education as a king. Scholarship and the arts flourished under his rule. The fusion of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Mediterranean elements resulted in extraordinary works of illumination, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels , or architecture, such as the sculptural decorations on the monasteries and churches in Wearmouth-Jarrow and Hexham.

Abbot Adomnan of Iona visited Aldfrith in 686 as an Irish ambassador to obtain the release of 60 Irishmen, who had been captured two years earlier by his predecessor Ecgfrith. On another visit in 688, Adomnan familiarized himself with the Roman Catholic rite of the Northumbrian Church. He gave Aldfrith his work De Locis Sanctis ("On the holy places"), which was based on a pilgrimage of Bishop Arculf . Abbot Aldhelm of Malmesbury , whom he presumably met in Wessex, dedicated the work De metris et enigmatibus ac pedum regulis also Epistula ad Acircium (letters to Aldfrith) to him. This textbook on Roman metrics contains a section on the symbolism of the number seven, as well as 100 puzzles in hexameters of great cultural and historical value. After his father had driven the Bishop of York, Wilfrid , into exile, he returned in 686, but tensions arose again in 688, probably because Aldfrith, who had got to know the Irish-Scottish liturgy in Iona, developed sympathy for its cult, while Wilfrid insisted on the execution of the decisions of the Whitby Synod . In addition, Aldfrith was not interested in creating a center of power in the Diocese of York that could counter his royal rule on an equal footing. Therefore, Aldfrith planned to establish another diocese in Ripon, while Wilfrid was exiled again in 692, this time to Mercia. There he became Bishop of Leicester .

The economic and political power of Aldfrith made possible a marriage alliance with the influential King Ine of Wessex , whose sister Cuthburg he married. He also introduced a new silver currency in Northumbria. The only military conflict in Aldfrith's reign came in 698, during which the Northumbrian Ealdorman Beorht / Beorhtred was killed in a confrontation with the Picts. At an unknown date, Aldfrith von Cuthburg divorced. She went to Barking Monastery as a nun and became the founder and first abbess of Wimborne Abbey in 718 . Around the year 702, Aldfrith convened the Council of Austerfield , in which Archbishop Beorhtwald , King Æthelred of Mercia and Wilfrid also took part.

Death and succession

When Aldfrith fell ill in 705, the succession to the throne was not assured because his son Osred was only about eight years old. On December 14, 705, Aldfrith died in Driffield . Some historians date his death differently to the year 704. A time of political turmoil began in which Eadwulf , a nobleman of unknown origin who was possibly related to the Deirian royal family, was able to assert himself against the supporters of Osred. He only ruled for two months, however; then Aldfrith's son Osred I followed through the support of his aunt Ælfflæd and the bishop Wilfrid to the throne. However, the dynastic disputes were only resolved for a short time and an era of economic and cultural decline began.

swell

literature

  • David W. Rollason: Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom . Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0521813358 .
  • 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)
  • DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings. Routledge, London-New York 2000, ISBN 978-0415242110 .
  • Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 .
  • Alfred P. Smyth: Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000 . Edinburgh University Press, 1989, ISBN 9780748601004 .
  • Aldfrith In: JMP Calise: Pictish Sourcebook: Documents of Medieval Legend and Dark Age History . ABC-CLIO / Greenwood, 2002, ISBN 978-0-313-32295-2 , p. 177.
  • Nicholas J. Higham: (Re-) reading Bede: The Ecclesiastical History in Context . Routledge, 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-35368-7 .
  • DP Kirby: Saint Wilfrid at Hexham . Taylor & Francis, 1974, ISBN 0-85362-155-1 .

Web links

Commons : Aldfrith  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Poem attributed to Aldfrith I found in Innisfail the fair  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Sharpe: Adomnan . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , p. 5.
  2. ↑ Simon Keynes: Kings of the Northumbrians . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , pp. 502-505.
  3. ^ MAS Blackburn: Coinage . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , pp. 113-116.
  4. ^ A b Philip Holdsworth: Oswiu . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , p. 349.
  5. ↑ a b c Martin Grimmer: The Exogamous Marriages of Oswiu of Northumbria . In: The Heroic Age, issue 9 . October 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Rosemary Cramp: Aldfrith  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.oxforddnb.com   (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed November 11, 2011
  7. ^ A b c Michelle Ziegler: The Politics of Exile in Early Northumbria ( Memento of January 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
  8. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 76.
  9. ^ Nicholas J. Higham, The convert kings: power and religious affiliation in early Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0719048289 , p. 234.
  10. ↑ RC Love: Æthelthryth . In: Michael Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1 , p. 18.
  11. ↑ Beda: HE 3.24
  12. ↑ Bertram Colgrave: The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great. Cambridge University Press, 1985, ISBN 978-052131384-1 , p. 42.
  13. ↑ Beda: HE 4,21
  14. ↑ Patrick Wormald: Ine (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed November 13, 2011
  15. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 89.
  16. ↑ DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings. Routledge, London-New York 2000, ISBN 978-0415242110 , p. 123.
  17. ↑ Patricia Helen Coulstock: The collegiate church of Wimborne Minster (Studies in the history of medieval religion Vol 5) , Boydell & Brewer, 1993, ISBN 9780851153391 , p. 31.
  18. ^ Nicholas J. Higham: An English Empire: Bede, the Britons, and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings. Manchester University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0719044236 , pp. 77-80.
  19. ^ A b Alfred P. Smyth: Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000. Edinburgh University Press, 1989, ISBN 9780748601004 , pp. 128-130.
  20. ↑ a b Beda: HE 4.26
  21. ↑ JR Maddicott: Ecgfrith (645 / 6–685) ( Memento of the original from December 9, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oxforddnb.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed November 11, 2011.
  22. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 80.
  23. ^ Richard Sharpe: Iona . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , pp. 254-255.
  24. ↑ Bede: HE 5.15
  25. ↑ Michael Lapidge: Aldhelm . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , p. 25.
  26. ↑ Beda: HE 5,18
  27. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 699
  28. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 92.
  29. ↑ DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings. Routledge, London-New York 2000, ISBN 978-0415242110 , p. 108.
  30. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 705
  31. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 88.
predecessor Office successor
Ecgfrith King of Northumbria
686-705 		Eadwulf
personal data
SURNAME Aldfrith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aldfrid; Aldfrið; Aldferþ; Alfrið; Aelfrid; Alchfrit; Alhfrithus; Arcircius; Ealdferth; Ealdferð; Ealdferþ; Flann Fína; Flainn Fína maic Ossu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Northumbria
DATE OF BIRTH before 634
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 705