Ealhfrith (Deira)

England in the time of Ealhfrith

Inscription of the Cross of Bewcastle

Ealhfrith (also Alhfrith, Alchfrith, Alchfrid, Alchfridus, Alchfrithus, Alhfrithus etc .; * around 635, † after 664) was from 655 to 664 sub-king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira .

Life

Family and youth

Ealhfrith was a son of King Oswiu of Northumbria . His mother was possibly his first wife Fina, daughter of Colman Rimid or more likely Rhianmellt from Rheged , a daughter of Royth, Oswius' second wife.

Oswiu tried to solve his political problems with Mercia through marriage policy: In the 550s he married his son Ealhfrith to Cyneburg, a daughter of King Penda of Mercia . Ealhfrith's descendants are not known. His sister Ealhflæd was married around the year 653 to Peada , the king of the middle anglers and son of Pendas, in whose conversion to Christianity Ealhfrith played a major role.

Domination

Despite the family connection through the marriage policy, war broke out between Oswiu and Penda in 655: Penda and Æthelhere , the subregulus (sub-king) of East Anglia , raided Bernicia and pushed Oswiu back to Scotland. Oswiu promised high tribute payments if Penda left the country, but he refused. Oswiu and his son Ealhfrith opposed Penda with significantly fewer troops. Oswius nephew Æthelwald (651–655) of Deira and the Welsh king Cadfael ap Cynfeddw of Gwynedd were allies of Mercia, but apparently left the army before the decisive battle of Winwaed near Loidis ( Leeds ) on November 15. In this battle both Penda and Æthelhere fell. Presumably Æthelwald wanted to win back Oswius' favor with this maneuver, but the latter apparently deposed him. Æthelwald then disappeared from the springs. Oswiu reunited Bernicia and Deira to form the Kingdom of Northumbria, in which Deira was now only a sub-kingdom, which was ruled as a subregulus by his son Ealhfrith .

Around 658 Ealhfrith founded an Irish-Scottish monastery in Ripon . Abbot Eata and Cuthbert , the first prior , were among the first monks to settle there. Ealhfrith, who grew up with the Irish-Scottish rite , came into contact not only through his wife, but also as an under-king with the southern kingdoms, which followed the Roman rite . He was on friendly terms with Cenwalh (642–672 / 673), the king of the Gewissæ . The common hostility to Mercia, but also connections of the West Saxon Bishop Agilbert to the Northumbrian clergy, enabled Cenwalh to work towards a reconciliation between Ealhfrith and Bishop Wilfrid .

Around 658 Wilfrid came to the court of Ealhfrith, which soon came under the influence of the charismatic “Roman” clergyman. Around 661 Ealhfrith became a follower of the Roman rite and handed over the Ripon monastery to Wilfrid , who was abbot there until 665. Wilfrid immediately introduced the Roman liturgy and the Regula Benedicti . Since he thereby ousted the Irish-Scottish rite, the Irish monks avoided the reformer. Eata and Cuthbert had to return to Melrose with the other followers of the Irish-Scottish Rite. In 664 the Synod of Whitby was convened at Ealhfrith's instigation . He was probably less concerned with religious issues than with weakening his father's position and strengthening his own power. Oswiu and Bishops Chad of York and Colman represented the Irish-Scottish rite, while Ealhfrith, Wilfrid and Bishop Agilbert represented the Roman Catholic position. The main disputes were the correct calculation of the Easter date and the monks' tonsure . After the successful synod for Ealhfrith, he sent Wilfrid to Gaul to be ordained bishop there. It is unclear whether he wanted to establish his own bishopric in his lower kingdom and sought the solution from the supremacy. In the 660s Ealhfrith planned to make a pilgrimage to Rome with Benedict Biscop , but his father Oswiu forbade him. According to individual historians, this is Benedict's journey around the year 666.

Then Ealhfrith disappeared from the sources. His half-brother Ecgfrith (664–670) initially took his place as sub-king in Deira. From 670 to 685 he was king of all Northumbrias. It is unlikely that Ealhfrith withdrew to a monastery or was banished there, as neither Bede nor Eddius Stephanus even hinted at this. Bede mentioned that Ealhfrith was at war with his father, but it is unknown whether this was after the Whitby Synod and possibly led to his death, or whether it happened long before that. The theory that he died there in exile or in a battle is based on a weathered commemorative inscription of the Bewcastle Cross in Cumbria , which Ealhfrith and his wife Cyneburg names.

swell

• Beda Venerabilis : Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , Online in the Medieval Sourcebook (English)
• Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cuthbercti , The Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindesfarne in the Medieval Sourcebook (English)
• Beda Venerabilis: Historia Abbatum , The Lives of The Holy Abbots of Weremouth and Jarrow in the Medieval Sourcebook (English)
• Eddius Stephanus: Vita Wilfridi

literature

• Rosemary Cramp: Alchfrith (fl. C.655 – c.665) (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2011
• 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)
• John Thomas Koch: Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia , ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 978-185109440-0 .
• DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings , Routledge, London-New York 2000, ISBN 978-0415242110 .
• DP Kirby, Alfred Smyth, Ann Williams (Eds.): A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain , Routledge, London-New York 1991, ISBN 978-1-85264-047-7 .

Web links

• Ealhfrith 1 in Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE)
• Alhfrith in Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
• William Hunt:  Alchfrith . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 1:  Abbadie - Anne. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1885, p. 235 (English ,, (partly outdated state of research)).

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} 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.
2. ↑ Martin Grimmer: The exogamous Marriages of Oswiu of Northumbria . In: The Heroic Age, issue 9 . October 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
3. ^ ^{A b c} John Thomas Koch: Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia , ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 978-185109440-0 , pp. 39-40.
4. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 82.
5. ↑ Beda: HE 3.21
6. ↑ Nicholas J. Higham: The convert kings: power and religious affiliation in early Anglo-Saxon England , Manchester University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0719048289 , p. 234.
7. ^ Richard Hoggett: The Archeology of the East Anglian Conversion (Anglo-Saxon Studies), Boydell & Brewer, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84383-595-0 , p. 33.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Beda: HE 3.24
9. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , pp. 78-80.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Beda: Vita sancti Cuthbercti 7–8
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Rosemary Cramp: Alchfrith (fl. C.655 – c.665)  ( 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.   (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2011
12. ↑ Barbara Yorke: Cenwalh  ( 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.   (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved November 13, 2011
13. ↑ Heinrich Beck (ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , Volume 33 , de Gruyter, 2006, ISBN 978-311018388-7 , p. 563.
14. ↑ Beda: HE 3.25
15. ^ TM Charles-Edwards: Early Christian Ireland , Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-052136395-2 , p. 430.
16. ↑ Barbara Ann Kipfer: Dictionary of artifacts , Wiley, 2007, ISBN 978-140511887-3 , p. 34.

predecessor	Office	successor
Æthelwald	King of Deira 655–664	Ecgfrith