Edith from Wessex

Edith is crowned queen. Depiction from the Vita of Edward the Confessor, 13th century.

Edith von Wessex (probably * 1029 ; † December 19, 1075 ), also called Edith Godwinson , was the wife of the English King Edward the Confessor and crowned Queen of England.

Edith von Wessex came from the powerful Anglo-Saxon family of the Godwins . In 1045 she was married to Eduard. For Edward, marriage was an essential means of asserting his power in England. The marriage remained childless. Later ecclesiastical chroniclers claimed that this was due to a vow of chastity by Edward. Eduard's biographer, Frank Barlow, points out, however, that there is no evidence of Edward's chaste life.

When Edith's father, Godwin von Wessex , and his family were expelled from the country in 1051, Eduard banished Edith to a convent. The Godwin family forced their return in 1052 and Edith was reinstated in her previous role. In later years she was one of Edward's closest advisors. She was considered strong-willed and assertive. The contemporary chronicler Wilhelm von Poitiers attested that Edith, who was very well trained for her time, had the " intelligence of a man ". In her role as Queen of England, she owned land of her own, but also owned lands. She performed essential functions at the royal court. She was an official witness of ceremonies and formal processes and, for example, represented the English king at the inauguration of Westminster Abbey shortly before the death of her husband .

Eduard died on January 4, 1066. Edith's brother Harald Godwinson succeeded him on the English throne. In the two battles of 1066, the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066 and the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, four of Edith's brothers, including Harald Godwinson, were killed. Her brother Wulfnoth Godwinson remained in Norman hostage custody, and Harald Godwinson's sons fled to Ireland. Edith von Wessex was thus the head of the Godwin family after the Norman conquest of England. The art historian Carola Hicks has therefore conclusively argued that Edith von Wessex was the client of the Bayeux Tapestry. This carpet thematizes the conquest of England by the Normans, but its statement is so ambiguous that it allows an Anglo-Saxon interpretation of the events. She is also the commissioner of the Vita Ædwardi Regis , the biography of Edward, in which the deeds of her family take a large part.

Edith died on December 19, 1075 in Wilton near Winchester and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

literature

• Stafford, Pauline (1997). Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in Eleventh-Century England , Blackwell ISBN 0-631-16679-3
• Carola Hicks: The Bayeux Tapestry - The Life Story of a Masterpiece , Vintage Books, London 2007, ISBN 9780099450191

Single receipts

1. ^ Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor , Yale University Press: London, 1997, p. 82.
2. ^ Barlow, p. 167
3. ↑ Hicks, p. 30

predecessor	Office	Successor
Ælfgifu	Queen Consort of England 1045-1066	Ealdgyth of Mercia