Osulf I of Bamburgh

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Osulf (fl. 946-954) was High-Reeve of Bamburgh and regent of Northumbria . Sometimes called the Earl , he is more likely to be the first reigning high reeve of Bamburgh and the man who ruled Northumbria, centered in the Kingdom of Jórvík , after helping in the death of its last independent ruler, Erik Blutaxt , than it was by the Wessex- based king in 954 Eadred was taken over.

origin

Osulf appears at least five times in witness lists for documents, some of which could be real, in the years 946, 949 and 950. In the years 946 and 949 he is referred to as High Reeve in the documents . In 949 he attested a bestowal to Evesham Abbey as well as one from King Eadred to Canterbury Cathedral as a dux . And in the year 950 an "Osulf Bebbanburg" is said to have been an earl.

He is the first to be specifically referred to as the Bamburgh High-Reeve . The word High-Reeve , Old English heah-gerefa , is influenced by Alfred Smyth from the Scottish word Mormaer , which probably has the same meaning ( High Steward ). According to North People's Law , a high reeve was not the same as an Ealdorman ( dux ) because it was only worth half as much weroney .

Osulf's origin is unclear. A genealogy in the text De Northumbria post Britannos , which records the origin of Waltheof of Northampton , suggests that Osulf was the son of Eadwulf II , the "king of the northern English", who died in 913. Richard Fletcher and David Rollason thought he might be the Osulf who attested to charter further south in the 930s, which, if correct, would extend Osulf's active time back to 934.

Erik Bloodaxe and rule over all of Northumbria

Although Eadulf and Ealdred appear to have ruled Northumbria, in the years up to 954 the kingdom was controlled by the Scandinavians Olaf Cuaran (Amlaíb Cuarán) and Erik Bloodaxt. According to Roger von Wendover's Flores historiarum (early 13th century), Osulf, with a certain Maccus, was responsible for the conspiracy that led to the betrayal and death of Erik Bloodaxt "in a certain lonely place called Stainmore ".

Thereafter, Osulf is said to have taken control of all of Northumbria. Although this part of the Flores historiarum was not compiled until centuries later and contains some obvious anachronisms, Roger von Wendover appears to have used certain older sources which no longer exist and which give credibility to the story. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle names Eadred as the new regent of Northumbria after Erik's expulsion:

Her Norðhymbre fordrifon Yric, 7 Eadred feng to Norðhymbra rice
This year the Northumbrians drove out Eric and Eadred followed in the kingdom of Northumbria ".

This is why Richard Fletcher believes that Osulf worked at Eadred's instigation, and that a grateful Eadred appointed Osulf ruler of the entire northern Umbrian sub-empire. Whichever way he got there, it was with Eadred's consent and suzerainty, at least according to known sources. De primo Saxonum adventu almost summarized the status as follows:

Primus comitum post Eiricum, quem ultimum regem habuerunt Northymbrenses, Osulf provincias omnes Northanhymbrorum sub Edrido rege procuravit .
First of the counts after Erik, the last king that the Northumbrians had, Osulf administered all the provinces of the Northumbrians under King Eadred.

Similar feelings were expressed in the related Historia Regum : "This is where the kings of Northumbrer ended and from then on the provinces were administered by counts." Eadred's takeover and Osulf's rule are the beginning of permanent West Saxon control of the north. Historian Alex Woolf argued that this takeover was a personal union similar to the Anglo-Scottish union of 1603.

Death and legacy

Little is otherwise known about Osulf's reign. The "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" says that in the time of Indulf (King of Scots from 954 to 962) Edinburgh was left to the Scots, with nothing being said about the involvement of Northumbrians or Osulf.

The date of Osulf's death is not known. He probably died before 963, as that is the date Oslac first appeared in York as Ealdorman . It is unclear whether Oslac was related to Osulf. According to the De primo Saxonum adventu , Northumbria was divided into two parts after the death of Osulf. De Northumbria post Britannos says that Osulf had a son named Ealdred, the father of Waltheof von Bamburgh (fl. 994), who in turn was the father of Uhtred .

literature

  • The North People's Law , Medieval Sourcebook: The Anglo-Saxon Dooms, 560-975, Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies
  • Alan Orr Anderson (Ed., 1908), Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers AD 500 to 1286 (1991, revised and corrected edition), Stamford: Paul Watkins, ISBN 1-871615-45-3 .
  • Thomas Arnold (Ed., 1922), Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores, or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages ; Volume 75, 2 volumes, London: Longman
  • Marios Costambeys, B. Harrison (2004), Erik Bloodaxe (Eiríkr Blóðöx, Eiríkr Haraldsson) (d. 954), viking leader and king of Northumbria. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  • Richard Fletcher (2003), Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England , London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-028692-6 .
  • William E. Kapelle (1979), The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and Its Transformation, 1000-1135 , London: Croom Helm Ltd, ISBN 0-7099-0040-6 .
  • Angelo Forte, Richard Oram, Frederik Pedersen (2005), Viking Empires , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-82992-5 .
  • Neil McGuigan (2015). Ælla and the descendants of Ivar: politics and legend in the Viking Age , Northern History. 52 (1), pp. 20-34.
  • David Rollason (2003), Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-04102-3 .
  • Frederic Seebohm (1902), Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to: (1) The English Village Community, (2) The Tribal System in Wales , London: Longmans, Green & Co.
  • Alfred P. Smyth (1984), Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000 , Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0-7486-0100-7 .
  • Ann Williams, Alfred P. Smyth, DP Kirby (1991), A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland and Wales, c.500-c.1050 , London: Seaby, ISBN 1-85264-047-2 .
  • Alex Woolf (2007), From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070 , The New Edinburgh History of Scotland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Sawyer 520 (PASE) & Sawyer 544 (PASE)
  2. ↑ Sawyer 550 (PASE) & Sawyer 546 (PASE)
  3. ↑ Sawyer 552a (PASE)
  4. ^ Smyth, p. 235.
  5. ↑ Seebohm, p. 363.
  6. ↑ McGuigan, pp. 24-25.
  7. ↑ Fletcher, p. 42; Rollason, Northumbria. P. 266.
  8. ↑ Costambeys; Hudson, pp. 37-38.
  9. ^ Forte, Oram, Pedersen, p. 117.
  10. ↑ Rollason, pp. 65-66.
  11. ↑ Costambeys
  12. ↑ ASC D (etc) , s. a. 954
  13. ↑ Fletcher, p. 41.
  14. ^ Arnold (Ed.), Volume ii, p. 382; Anderson, p. 77.
  15. ↑ Quoted in Woolf, p. 190.
  16. ↑ Woolf, pp. 190, 191.
  17. ^ Smyth, p. 232.
  18. ↑ Fletcher, p. 44; Rollason, pp. 266-267.
  19. ↑ Fletcher, p. 44.
  20. ^ Arnold (Ed.), Volume ii, p. 382.
  21. ↑ McGuigan, pp. 25, 33.
personal data
SURNAME Osulf of Bamburgh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION High Reeve of York
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century
DATE OF DEATH after 954