Osred I.

Northumbria in the time of Osred

Osred I (also Osredus, Osrit, Osræd ; * 696 ; † 716 ) was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria from 706 until his death .

Life

family

Osred was the son of King Aldfrith (686–705) of Northumbria. Whether his only known wife Cuthburga (fl. Around 700–718 / 725), who later became the abbess of Wimborne Abbey , was the mother of his children, is unknown. Osred's siblings were Offa († 750) and possibly also Osric (718-729). In religious contexts, Saint Osanna is represented by Jouarre as Osred's sister. The relationship with her is rejected by modern historians as legendary.

Domination

When King Aldfrith fell ill in 705, the succession to the throne was not assured because his son Osred was only about eight or nine 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 Northumbrian nobleman, was able to assert himself against the supporters of Osred. At first Eadwulf was supported by Wilfrid , the Bishop of York, who had been driven into exile by Aldfrith and was now hoping to be reinstated. After corresponding approaches were unsuccessful, Wilfrid supported Osred from then on. Eadwulf's reign lasted only two months. In the vicinity of Bamburgh there were military clashes with the supporters of Osred, which included his aunt Ælfflæd, Bishop Wilfrid and Ealdorman Beorhtfrith. Eadwulf was defeated and had to go into exile.

Osred succeeded the throne. He was the first documented minor king in Anglo-Saxon history. However, the dynastic disputes were only resolved for a short time and an era of economic and cultural decline began. Osred appears to have had financial problems and was unable to maintain his father's high-quality coinage. The ruling regents of Ealdormen Berhtred and Beorhtfrith used their position to enrich themselves at the expense of the state.

Wilfrid was Osred's foster father, but did not get his diocese of York back. At the Synod convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury Bertwald (693-731) 706 on the River Nidd in North Yorkshire Wilfrid was confirmed as Northumbrian Bishop of Hexham and as Abbot of Ripon . During Osred's reign, the war against the Picts continued. In 711, the Ealdorman (praefectus) Beorhtfrith won a victory between the Avon and Carron rivers in what is now Falkirk County in southern Scotland. The independent rule of the young Osred did not last long. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle following he fell 716 in a battle, probably in the fight against the Picts. William of Malmesbury , a 12th century chronicler, however, narrated that Osred fell victim to a conspiracy, but that is probably just a hypothesis. With his death, the almost uninterrupted kingship of the descendants of Æthelfrith (592–616) ended and passed to Cenred , whose origins can be traced back to a branch of the dynasty founder Ida .

character

Osred's character was portrayed as ambivalent . During his lifetime, Beda Venerabilis compared Osred to the biblical King Joschiah , a patron of the faith. In later writings, however, Bede wrote of a decline in church values. The contemporary Boniface described him as an immoral libertine who fornicated with nuns. Sources of the 9th century accuse him of murdering Northumbrian nobles or exiling them in monastic custody. In the 11th century he was mentioned by Folcard in connection with John von Beverley (705-718), the Bishop of York, and represented as religious and devout.

swell

• anonymous: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Online in Project Gutenberg (English)
• Beda Venerabilis : Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , Online 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
• anonymous: Annales Cambriae , Annales Cambriae 447-954 in the Medieval Sourcebook (English)
• Annals of Ulster , The Annals of Ulster AD 431-1201 in CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts

literature

• NJ Higham: The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350-1100. Stroud: Sutton, 1993. ISBN 978-0-86299-730-4
• 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 978-0-415-24211-0 .
• DP Kirby: Saint Wilfrid at Hexham . Taylor & Francis, 1974, ISBN 0-85362-155-1 .
• James Earle Fraser: From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795 (New Edinburgh history of Scotland, Volume 1) , Edinburgh University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7486-1232-1 .
• David W. Rollason: Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom . Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-81335-8 .

Web links

• David Rollason: Osred I (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved November 13, 2011
• Osred 1 in Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE)
• Osred I in Foundation for Medieval Genealogy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 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 978-0-631-22492-1 , pp. 502-505.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} David W. Rollason: Osred I  ( 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
3. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 89.
4. Jump up ↑ DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings , Routledge, London-New York 2000, ISBN 978-0-415-24211-0 , p. 123.
5. ↑ Patricia Helen Coulstock: The collegiate church of Wimborne Minster (Studies in the history of medieval religion Vol 5) , Boydell & Brewer, 1993, ISBN 978-0-85115-339-1 , p. 31.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} 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.   (paid registration required). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2011
7. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 705
8. ^ ^{A b} Eddius Stephanus: Vita Wilfridi 59
9. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 87.
10. ^ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 , p. 92.

predecessor	Office	successor
Eadwulf	King of Northumbria 706-716	Cenred