Pre-print of Neil McGuigan, ‘Ælla and the Descendants of Ivar: Politics and Legend in the Viking Age’, Northern History 52.1 (March, 2015), pp. 20–34. Final published version available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0078172X14Z.00000000075  I In March 867 the Northumbrian king Ælla died at York during a battle against the Scandinavian ‘Great Army’.1 Two years later, further south, the same force dealt a similar end to the ruler of East Anglia.2 King Edmund subsequently became the object of significant religious devotion. His death produced one of the most important royal martyr cults of medieval Europe, giving rise to an eponymous city and territorial honour as well as the dedicated shrine at their centre. The new cult had received significant patronage within a generation. The successors of his killers, the conquering Scandinavians who had settled in East Anglia and adjacent regions of Mercia, oversaw its rise. Like Henry II after the Becket affair, the East Anglian Norse came to honour their victim. A series of coins dedicated to Edmund as saint and king were in circulation in the region within thirty years, seemingly coming to an end only when Edward the Elder established West Saxon overlordship of Norse East Anglia in 918.3 Yet the West Saxon monarchs were to embrace the cult too, and at the other end of the tenth century it became one of the formally patronised cults of the ‘unified’ kingdom of England, with Abbo of Fleury’s Passio Sancti Eadmundi standardising early legends in the form expected for such a martyr.4 Although both Christian kings died in similar circumstances, Ælla was to have a remarkably different afterlife. For Dorothy Whitelock, ‘to die fighting the heathen was an adequate claim to sanctity’. 5 For Ælla, it was not quite adequate enough.6 Northumbria’s own Historia de Sancto Cuthberto [hereafter HSC] made him one of Cuthbert’s historical persecutors. God sent Ubba’s Frisians and the Scaldingi against the Northumbrian people only because of their king’s unjust behaviour. Ælla’s death and that of ‘nearly all the English’ (omnes prope Anglos) could thus be blamed on the king.7 In the twelfth century, the anonymous Narratio *The author would like to acknowledge his gratitude for the helpful comments from Dr Alex Woolf and Dr Peter Maxwell-Stuart, as well as Steven Watts and Dr Edward Roberts, during draft. 1 D. Whitelock, with D. C.Douglas and S. I. Tucker, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : a Revised Translation (1961), p. 45 : s.a. 867. 2 Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 46: s.a. 870, but referring to late 869. 3 M. Blackburn and H. Pagan, ‘The St Edmund Coinage in the light of a Parcel from a Hoard of St Edmund Pennies’, British Numismatic Journal, LXXII (2002), 1–14; C. E. Blunt, ‘The St. Edmund Memorial Coinage’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archæology, XXXI (3) (1970), 234–55. 4 Abbo of Fleury, Passio Sancti Eadmundi, ed. & trans. F. Hervey, Corolla Sancti Eadmundi / The Garland of Saint Edmund, King and Martyr (1907), pp. 6–59 (edn. without translation based on Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls Series 96, 3 vols (1890–96), I, 3–25; for a more recent edition of this text, see Three Lives of English Saints, ed. M. Winterbottom (Toronto, 1972), pp. 67–87 ); for accounts of the early cult, see S. J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo- Saxon England (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 61–73, D. Whitelock, ‘Fact and Fiction in the Legend of St. Edmund’, PSIA, XXXI (3) (1970), 217–33 , and A. Gransden, ‘The Passio Sancti Eadmundi by Abbo of Fleury’, Revue Bénédictine, CV (1995), 20–78. 5 Whitelock, PSIA, XXXI, 217–18. 6 Cf. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. M. Chibnall, 6 vols (Oxford, 1969–80), II, 240–41 : iv.201, who mentions that in addition to Edmund of East Anglia, ‘two other English kings fell as martyrs’ to the Great Army. 7 Historia de Sancto Cuthberto / A History of the Saint Cuthbert and a Record of His Patrimony [hereafter HSC], ed. and trans. T. J. South, Anglo-Saxon Texts 3 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 50–53. de Uxore Aernulfi made Ælla the worst of lords, who brought about his own downfall by raping the women of his followers.8 In these accounts, there could be no question of Ælla’s sainthood. His death was retribution for moral transgression; the fast road to heaven was not an appropriate reward. Although God was involved in the death of both kings, the motivation differed. The modern historian might be more inclined to see the differing reactions attributed to God as themselves the outcome of political process. Early annalistic notices of the fatal ‘battle of York’ indicate that Ælla’s royal credentials were publicly challenged in the immediate aftermath of his demise. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [hereafter ASC] asserted that Ælla was ‘not of the main royal line’ (ungecyndne), something repeated and echoed in most of the related Latin translations.9 Such claims demonstrate, perhaps superfluously, that there were at least two dynasties claiming the right to rule Northumbria. Significant political polarisation would have disrupted the formation of consensus about Ælla’s death, especially if the latter’s own kin were left weak by their loss; or if Ælla himself had alienated the middle ground with uncharismatic leadership, in turn attracting blame for the defeat.10 Ælla’s fame today, to the extent he has any, comes via Scandinavian legendary history: he is depicted unsympathetically in the classic 1958 Hollywood adaptation of that tradition, The Vikings; and more recently in the popular History Channel dramatisation, Vikings. Between the ninth century and the twelfth there 8 Narratio de uxore Aernulfi ab Ella Rege Deirorum Violata, ed. T. Wright, Publications of the Caxton Society no. 2 (1850), in Gaimar, Havelok et Herward / The Anglo-Norman metrical chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimar, appendix, pp. 35–45. 9 For the ASC account, see fn. 1; for the ‘Alfredian annals’ attributed to Asser in the former British Library, Cotton MSS, Otho A XII, see Asser's Life of King Alfred. Together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), pp. 22–23, trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (1983), p. 76; for the Historia Regum ‘part 1’ version of those annals, see Byrhtferth's Northumbrian Chronicle: An Edition and Translation of the Old English and Latin Annals, ed. and trans. C. Hart, Early Chronicles of England 2 (Lewiston NY, 2006), pp. 196–99 (also Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls Series 75, 2 vols (1882–85), II, 74–75); for the subsequent ‘part 2’ Historia Regum account, see Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 105–06; for the Annals of St Neots, see The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : a Collaborative Edition / Vol.17, The Annals of St. Neots, with, Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, ed. D. Dumville and M. Lapidge (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 53–54; for John of Worcester, see The Chronicle of John of Worcester / Vol. 2, The Annals from 450 to 1066 [hereafter CJW, II], ed. and trans. R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk, and J. Bray, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1995), pp. 280–83; for Roger of Wendover, see Rogeri de Wendover Chronica : sive, Flores Historiarum [hereafter Wendover, Chronica], ed. H. O. Coxe, 5 vols, English Historical Society (1841–44), I, 298–99; for Æthelweard, see Chronicon Æthelweardi / Chronicle of Æthelweard , ed. A. Campbell (1962), pp. 35–36 : iv.2. 10 HSC claims that Ælla and Osberht were brothers (HSC, 50–51), but that is likely to be speculation on the part of the eleventh-century narrator (cf. ASC s.a. 867, which appears to distinguish their lineage). Some of the Latin translations of the ASC entry take the assertion that ‘both kings’ (þa cyningas begen) were killed to mean that Osberht had died at that battle along with Ælla. This is not an unreasonable reading, though is uncertain because of ASC’s earlier reference to the ‘casting out’ (aweorpan) of Osberht. The entry says that the survivors made peace with the Great Army. Two of the next three Northumbrian kings bear a name (i.e. the Ecgberhts) sharing a dithematic suffix with Osberht, strong evidence of kinship (see, for instance, C. Clark, 'Onomastics', in The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 1: The Beginnings to 1066, ed. R. M. Hogg (Cambridge, 1992), p. 458, and references therein). Even though there is no suggestion that Osberht fought with the Vikings against Ælla, it still looks reasonably possible that Osberht’s kin benefited from the battle of York. emerged a cycle of heroic tales centring on the alleged ancestors of several important Scandinavian dynasties, including Ivar ‘the Boneless’ (Britain and Ireland), Bjorn ‘Ironside’ (Sweden), and Sigurd ‘Snake-in-the-Eye’ (Denmark).11 These men were linked together by the supposed parentage of one Ragnar Loðbrok, son of [Sigurd] Hring. Ælla was to be an important figure in this cycle. The Northumbrian king was the antagonist, the slayer of Ragnar who found a gruesome death at the hands of the avenging son, Ivar.12 Ælla’s contribution comes down to us in multiple versions, an involvement often claimed to have had its origins in Anglo-Scandinavian regions.13 Surviving work attributed to Cnut’s court poet Sigvat the Skald suggests that Ælla’s passion at the hands of Ivar was already a well-established historical ‘fact’ in the early eleventh century, potentially making the Ivar-Ælla episode the earliest attested part of the cycle. Sigvat could cite it as a precursor to the Anglo-Danish wars of his own time.14 The tales of Ivar and his family continued to be reshaped in later centuries in different countries according to new political geographies, with Ivar acquiring brothers through Ragnar and being transported from an original setting in Britain and Ireland to that of mainland Scandinavia. In book ix of Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, a rationalisation of varying traditions plausibly related to the predecessors of the twelfth-century monarchs of Denmark, ‘real’ Danish royal figures were side-lined as the author made Ragnar and his family central to the narrative.15 Ivar’s significance in England is well known to modern historians. The principal rulers of Scandinavian England from the 910s until the 940s were chiefly, and perhaps entirely, drawn from a lineage claiming descent from Ivar. Our understanding of these men as historical (as well as legendary) figures has increased significantly in recent years due to the work of Alfred Smyth, Benjamin 11 For instance, in the legendary material preserved in the Saga of Hervar and Heidrek (Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks), Ivar ruled England, Sigurd Denmark, Bjorn Sweden, and ‘Hvitserk’ the ‘eastern kingdom’, for which see Saga Heiðreks Konungs ins Vitra / The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, ed. and trans. C. Tolkein (1960), pp. 60–61; these traditions seem in part at least to be derived from the Sigurd stories; see E. A. Rowe, Vikings in the West: The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and His Sons (Vienna, 2012), pp. 158–64, for these and other sons attributed to Ragnar. 12 The tradition is attested in such a range of independent literary sources that there can be no doubt of its prevalence in secular, ‘oral cultural’. Its principal modern studies are R. McTurk, Studies in Ragnars Saga Loðbrókar and its Major Scandinavian Analogues (Oxford, 1991), a work significantly indebted to a series of 1920s articles by Jan de Vries (for list, see ibid., p. 262); and following McTurk, Rowe, Vikings in the West. Some of the chief early Scandinavian witnesses of the cycle, the twelfth-century Krákumál, the thirteenth-century Ragnars Saga Loðbrókar, and a series of extracts (some in Latin translation) thought to derive substantially from the lost twelfth-century Skjöldunga saga—including the early-fourteenth-century saga of Ragnar’s sons (often called Ragnarssona þáttr)—are available in English in B. Waggoner, The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok (New Haven CT, 2009) , based on Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda, ed. G. Jónsson and B. Vilhjálmsson, 3 vols (Reykjavik, 1943–44), with critical edition of these texts in Völsunga Saga ok Ragnars Saga Loðbrókar, ed. M. Olsen (Copenhagen, 1906–08) and (for Krákumál) Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. F.Jónsson, 4 vols (Copenhagen, 1912–15), AI, 641–49 and ibid., BI, 649–56. 13 McTurk, Studies, p. 213, and J. de Vries, ‘Die Wikingersaga’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, XVII (1927), 81–83; see also A. P. Smyth, Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles, 850–880 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 99–100. 14 English Historical Documents, Vol.1, c.500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2nd edn (1979), p. 337; M. K. Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King (Stroud, 2011), p. 16. 15 Translation in H. Ellis Davidson and P. Fisher, The History of the Danes : Books I-IX / Saxo Grammaticus (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 279–97, text can be found in Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien, ed. K. Friis-Jensen, 2 vols (Copenhagen, 2005), I, 584–620. Hudson, and Clare Downham, among others, who have grounded the dynasty and the politics of the era firmly in reliable contemporary sources.16 From the 910s these Uí Ímair—the Irish-derived historiographic term for the grandsons and great- grandsons of Ivar—came to preside over a considerable part of England as well as the significant Hiberno-Norse ‘city-states’ and much of the Irish Sea region. In 875, following its wintering at Repton, the Great Army had divided into two sections, one half going north and creating the ‘kingdom of York’, the other south and (despite defeat to the West Saxons) creating a kingdom in or around East Anglia. Despite the charisma of the ‘kingdom of York’ as a name and idea, the evidence we have suggests that their English dominion in the tenth century consisted not simply of Northumbrian territory, but of Lincoln and (probably) the other ‘five boroughs’, perhaps periodically supplemented by some kind of related tributary overlordship in neighbouring Anglo-Scandinavian and English territory. 17 This lordship ended when the West Saxons took over in York and when they established themselves as uncontested rulers of the entire Danelaw. From King Eadred (died 955) onwards the power of Ivar’s descendants was confined to the Irish cities, parts of the former Northumbrian west country, and some of the islands off Britain’s west coast.18 Memory of particular descendants of Ivar, as well as Ivar himself, endured in ‘Danish’ regions of England. These legendary rulers were incorporated into the historical identity of the Danelaw’s English and Anglo- Scandinavian population. Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis depicts Ivar’s great- grandson Olaf Cuarán as the primordial king of a pre-Viking Danelaw (ruling ‘from Holland to Colchester’ [line 805]), while the same figure was popular long enough to receive his own ‘epic’, the fullest extant example surviving in Middle 16 A. P. Smyth, Scandinavian York and Dublin : the History and Archaeology of Two Related Viking Kingdoms, 2 vols (Dublin, 1979); B. Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion and Empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford, 2005); C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014 (Edinburgh, 2007); see also D. M. Hadley, The Vikings in England: Settlement and Culture (Manchester, 2006), pp. 28–80, and A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba: 789 to 1070 (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 122–76; see also fn. 18. 17 Sigtrygg had coins minted at Lincoln, and it is known that Olaf son of Guthfrith (and perhaps Olaf son of Sigtrygg) as well as Sigtrygg himself had coins struck in the southern Danelaw. The view of Murray Beaven that the ‘five boroughs’ were a new acquisition by Olaf Cuarán is not demonstrated by the evidence (M. L. R. Beaven, ‘King Edmund I and the Danes of York’, EHR, XXXIII (1918), 3), though it is true that Edward the Elder extracted some kind of overlordship over this part of Scandinavian England. That the ‘five boroughs’ were part of the English kingdom later in the 940s (if they were) or under intermittent overlordship in earlier decades does not make them different from southern Northumbria; the five boroughs would have fallen under West Saxon overlordship anyway when West Saxon monarchs ruled York, as they did under Æthelstan between the late 920s and 939; see M. Blackburn, ‘Expansion and Control: Aspects of Anglo- Scandinavian Minting South of the Humber’, in Vikings and the Danelaw : Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, Nottingham and York, 21st-30th August 1999, ed. J. Graham-Campbell (Oxford, 2001), pp. 125–42; M. Blackburn ‘The Coinage of Scandinavian York’, in Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian York, ed. R.A. Hall, Archaeology of York 4 (York, 2004), p. 327; and P. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire, History of Lincolnshire 3 (Lincoln, 1998), pp. 119–23; see also P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage : with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 1, The Early Middle Ages (5th- 10th centuries) (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 323–25. 18 For instance, Hudson, Viking Pirates, pp. 56–78, or C. Etchingham, ‘North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: the Insular Viking Zone’, Peritia : Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, XV (2001), 145–87. English from the late thirteenth century. 19 According to a tradition preserved in the thirteenth-century Ragnar’s Saga, Ivar’s tomb was thought to protect the English kingdom from foreign conquest; so much so that William the Conqueror had Ivar’s undecayed body disinterred and burned in order to complete his conquest.20 II In Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 92, towards the end of a continuation of John of Worcester’s Chronicle, the compiler reproduces a series of documents relating to the Scottish monarchy and the Great Cause. Between a French letter and a Latin Scottish king list, there is a tract on the history of Northumbria and its earls. I have titled this tract De Northumbria post Britannos [DNPB, following the first sentence of the text].21 The work is mid-twelfth century or later, shares some traditions with Historia Brittonum and De Primo Saxonum Adventu [hereafter DPSA], and draws heavily on Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum for its account of the Anglo-Norman era. The text might be considered a Northumbrian version of Scotland’s De Situ Albanie, in the sense that it appears to share many of the same goals. Uniquely, however, DNPB presents a genealogy of the Northumbrian earl Waltheof (died 1076), son of Siward (died 1055). The genealogy covers the entirety of what the author sees as Anglo-Northumbrian history. Waltheof’s mother, it claims, was descended in the male line from a Northumbrian earl name Eadwulf; Eadwulf is described as the son of a daughter of Ælla (see Appendix). From Eadwulf until Waltheof the genealogy appears to be accurate. The information in this section is too plausible or verifiably true to have been formulated in twelfth-century ignorance, particularly considering the obscurity of the surviving sources which corroborate most of it. Its ancestry of Ælla is nevertheless invented, and the nature of the concoction seems to reveal the ultimate source’s lack of industry regarding falsification, and hence his lack of responsibility for the remainder. This also suggests, per Occam’s razor, that Ælla had been the pivotal figure in the genealogy when drawn together for Waltheof. Whoever the agnatic ancestors of Eadwulf were, they were either forgotten or they were not worth remembering for the purposes of the source (perhaps, like Siward’s agnatic ancestors, they were not Northumbrian). The genealogy is especially significant because it is the only document to detail the links between the early eleventh-century earls and the preceding ‘Bamburgh family’ who appear in the sources in the early- and mid-tenth century—though the link has long been suspected. Ealdred, son of Oswulf (fl. 954) and father of Waltheof (fl. 994), would 19 Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis / History of the English, ed. I. Short (Oxford, 2009), pp. 7– 51; Havelok, ed. S. Shepard, Middle English Romances: A Norton Critical Edition (New York, 1995), pp. 3–75. 20 Waggoner, Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok, p. 37. 21 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 92, folios. 197r–197v. I have reproduced this text with an accompanying translation in the appendix below. It was previously printed with some imperfections (including omissions) in Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe, 2 vols (1848–49), II, 250–52; the Scottish king-list following DNPB is Marjorie Anderson’s ‘H’ list; see Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, ed. M. O. Anderson, rev. edn (Edinburgh, 1980), X, 75–76; see also D. Broun, The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Woodbridge, 1999), p. 139. otherwise be unknown; and there would be no direct evidence of any family link between Oswulf and his family, and that of Waltheof.22 The preservation of the name Æthelthryth as Ælla’s daughter—or at least as Eadwulf’s mother—would also be unique, perhaps witnessing an important figure from late ninth-century Northumbrian politics.23 Eadwulf—grandson of Ælla if we believe the DNPB genealogy—died in 913. The Annals of Ulster record his death, titling him ‘King of the Northern English’ (Etulbb ri Saxan Tuaiscirt).24 The Annals of Clonmacnoise, a compilation surviving only in an early modern English translation, note the death of one of his sons, with the same title (Adulf mcEtulfe, king of the North Saxons), datable for 934. Adulf in an Irish annal is most likely to represent the name Æthelwulf, though in this context—an English name from Northumbria going into Gaelic, before going ‘back’ into [early modern] English centuries later—there can be no absolute guarantee. 25 We also know about Eadwulf from the Latin annals of Æthelweard. The latter note (reassuringly) for the same year the death of Aðulf, who ‘as actor presided over the fortress of Bamburgh’ (præerat actori oppidi Bebbanburgh condicti).26 The vague terminology is curious, but also late. Æthelweard’s West Saxon predecessors may have seen Eadwulf as they saw ‘Ealdorman’ Æthelred of Mercia (died 911), a king who acknowledged the overlordship of Edward the Elder. Æthelweard was prepared to call Æthelred both king (rex) and ealdorman (dux).27 In other words, a rex could be a dux in a subordinated context, and the 22 Reasonably enough, it has been suggested that Waltheof was a son of Oswulf; for instance, R. Fletcher, Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England (2002), p. 39. 23 If this Æthelthryth were historical, then it is very possible that previously overlooked tangential references might be found. A significant woman from precisely her era is the ‘widow of Whittingham’, said by several related accounts to have owned the future king Guthred as a slave before he was ransomed and inaugurated monarch. If the story is true and this ‘widow’ (uidua) was able to hold someone of such rank in captivity and then force payment from the Scandinavian army, such a figure must have been able to command considerable power. Whittingham in Northumberland (and Whittingehame in East Lothian) would be appropriately far north to lie in the later Eadwulfing territorial base (see below). For the widow of Whittingham, see Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis [hereafter CMD], ed. H. H. E. Craster, ‘The Red Book of Durham’, EHR, XL (1925), 504–32, at 524, Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 114, and Wendover, Chronica, I, 335 (cf. HSC, pp. 52–53). 24 Annals of Ulster [hereafter AU], ed. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published], University College Cork, s.a. 912 or 913 (recte 913); see also Fragmentary Annals of Ireland [hereafter FA], ed. CELT, c. 456, s.a. 912 (recte 913), commemorating Etalbh, rí Saxan tuaisgirt. 25 The Annals of Clonmacnoise, being Annals of Ireland from the Earliest Period to A.D. 1408 / Translated into English A.D. 1627 by Conell Mageoghagan, ed. D. Murphy (1896) [hereafter AC], p. 149 : s.a. 928 (recte 934); the Irish obit for Æthelwulf King of Wessex who died in 858 uses exactly this form: Adulf rex Saxan (AU, s.a. 857, recte 858). The contraction of Æthelwulf to Æthulf is not an unexpected one, and may appear in English sources relating to the same era (e.g. Chronicon Æthelweardi, pp. 34–35, 37, 39, supplying Aðulf and Athulf for Æthelwulf). An auslaut ‘d’ in pre-twelfth-century Irish should represent a dental fricative /ð/; ‘t’ would be expected for /d/ in this environment, and this is the case in the same Clonmacnoise entry for his father Eadwulf (Etulf). Other candidates are not particularly probable; for instance Eadwulf and Ealdwulf, even ignoring the ‘d’ in both, are unlikely because the Clonmacnoise form would then be distinguishing the same two stressed vowels (both represented in Old English as ea). Genitive vowel-raising might be a possibility, but Eadwulf is especially unlikely on anthroponymic grounds (i.e. in requiring the son to have the same name as the father); see fn. 35. 26 Chronicon Æthelweardi, pp. 52–53 : iv.4. 27 For rex, see Chronicon Æthelweardi, p. 50; for dux, ibid., p. 46; see also ibid., p. 53, for Myrciorum superstes, translated by Campbell as ‘lord of the Mercians’; generally, unstable or reluctance of West Saxon sources at any given time to refer to Eadwulf or his sons by the title of ‘king’ is to be expected even if they held the honour, and so is not good evidence that they lacked it. On the contrary, the styles in the Irish annals indicate that both Eadwulf and his son Adulf held the Northumbrian kingship. The Irish annals had also noted the death of Ælla in the same way as they had honoured his alleged grandson and great-grandson: Alli, rex Saxan Aquilonalium.28 The same title is used (in three different languages!) for three potentates, and the consistency in these and other entries appears to indicate that ‘Northern English’ arose from a specific proper- unusual vocabulary to describe the position of a potentate indicates that the position was difficult to place within or reconcile with an author’s mental order of things; see also M. R. Davidson, ‘The (Non)submission of the Northern Kings in 920’, in Edward the Elder, 899–924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (2001), pp. 203–05, and Woolf, Pictland to Alba, p. 147. 28 AU, s.a. 866 (recte 867). name used in Irish to refer to the Northumbrians and their kingdom.29 While it might be tempting to see such use of ‘king’ as merely a generic style for any dominant warlord in northern England, this is very special pleading. A rex or rí was a particular type of officeholder who, in both English and Irish culture, was a public figure and had undergone formal rituals of inauguration and community recognition. Referring to the Northumbrian monarch as ‘king of the North’ was a well-established variation, and can be found as early as the writings of Aldhelm. 30 No word for ‘Northumbria’ derived from the English word (or that Latinisation) is known in any of the Celtic dialects of Scotland or Ireland. Our surviving tenth- century Scottish source refers to it simply as Saxonia.31 Due to the size of Northumbria, interaction between Scots and other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was probably minimal enough for such a term to be sufficient until the ‘unified’ Anglo- Saxon kingdom began to flex its muscles further north in the tenth century. 32 Sons of Eadwulf are attested in other English sources. The ASC MS A entry for 920 lists ‘Rognvald, and the sons of Eadwulf and all who live in Northumbria’ (Rægnald, 7 Eadulfes suna, 7 ealle þa þe on Norþhymbrum bugeaþ) as having submitted to Edward the Elder.33 HSC too mentions both Eadwulf and two specific sons, describing the former as the ‘esteemed one’ (dilectus) of King Ælfred; and attributing a similar relationship with Edward the Elder to one of those sons, Ealdred (fl. 918–33). The account goes on to describe Ealdred’s expulsion by Rognvald (died 920), his flight to Scotland, and how he returned with the Scottish king Causantín mac Áeda (died 952) only to suffer defeat at the battle of Corbridge. Despite the death of most of the English, Ealdred and his brother Uhtred (fl. 918–35) managed to survive the battle. In ASC MS D, Ealdred Ealdulfing from Bebbanbyrig (where Ealdulfing is probably a scribal error for Eadulfing) appears with several Celtic rulers, making peace with Æthelstan at Eamotum, probably somewhere in the region of Penrith, after Æthelstan’s 29 AU, s.a. 866 (recte 867), AU, s.a. 912 or 913 (recte 913), AC, p. 149 : s.a. 928 (recte 934); see also fn. 24 and fn. 25; the full AU 867 entry is Bellum for Saxanu Tuaisceirt i Cair Ebhroc re n- Dubghallaib, in quo cecidit Alli, rex Saxan Aquilonalium (‘The Dubgaill won a battle over the Northumbrians at York, in which died Ælla King of the Northumbrians’). Similarly, AU, s.a. 917 or 918 (recte 918), writes of the battle of Corbridge, Fir Alban dono ara cenn-somh co comairnechtar for bru Tine la Saxanu Tuaiscirt (‘The men of Scotland, moreover, moved against them and they met on the bank of the Tyne in Northumbria’). The terminology is so consistent that either the same author was behind all these entries, or we are dealing with the period’s Irish name for the Northumbrian kingdom. 30 The Malmesbury writer addressed one Northumbrian king in such a manner, e.g. illustri Acirio Aquilonalis imperii sceptra gubernanti, for which see Aldhelmi Opera Omnia, ed. R. Ehwald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, xv (Berlin, 1919), 61. Cardinal directions are commonly used in the names of Irish polities, but would also be suggested by English use in Northanhymbra and Estangle; cf. II Edward 5.2., ed. and trans. F. L. Attenborough, The Laws of the Earliest English Kings (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 120–21, an edict by Edward the Elder referring to treaties with the ‘northern’ and ‘eastern’ kingdoms. 31 Anderson, Kings and Kingship, p. 252. 32 It is worth noting here that the obituary of David I, King of the Scots, in the twelfth-century Annals of Tigernach styled him Dabid mac Mail Colaim, rí Alban & Saxan. David had begun his career as a ruler in part of the former heartland of the Northumbrian earldom, and subsequently through his wife and son claimed and achieved overlordship over other former Northumbrian regions to the south, what are now the northern-most counties of England; see Annals of Tigernach, ed. CELT, s.a. 1153. 33 Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 68–69. accession to Sigtrygg’s kingdom in 927. 34 An Anglo-Latin annal (using something similar to ASC MS E’s entry s.a. 927) adds that Sigtrygg’s brother Guthrith (died 934), as well as a son of Eadwulf, were expelled from Northumbria. This particular annal may be corrupt, but might suggest either that Æthelstan had dislodged an Eadwulfing ruler or that he replaced one with another. In either case, how did ‘Æthelwulf’ come to be in a position to die as King of Northumbria in 934? That very year Æthelstan marched into Scotland as far as Dunnottar in the Mearns (Kincardineshire), against Causantín mac Áeda. What was Causantín doing that worried the West Saxon king so much? It is worth remembering that the Eadwulfings had been allied to this section of the Scottish dynasty in 918. It probably will not be possible to go much further than speculation, but it is just possible that Æthelstan’s expedition deep into Scottish territory was necessary to make sure that this ‘Æthelwulf’ would be the last formally-recognised Northumbrian king maintaining a power-centre north of the Tyne. 35 If the Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian kingdom continued into the tenth century, then where do the Uí Ímair and their predecessors as ‘kings of York’ fit in? Reconciling these kings with the English ones can obviously be done with creative use of interregna and hypothetical ‘usurpations’, but that would still leave us having to explain the absence of any Eadwulfing monarch from the ‘Northumbrian coinage’. Another explanation is that the ‘Norse kings of Northumbria’ did not rule as kings of Northumbria per se, at least not purely by virtue of ruling in York. As Northumbria’s ecclesiastical metropolis it would be natural to conflate the two, for both modern and medieval historians. As hinted above, there is good reason to be sceptical about this. Take the example of Rognvald, the first certain Ua Ímair king in York. The assumption that Rognvald was king of Northumbria comes about today because he is known to have taken York (from the annals), to have issued coins there, and because of a tradition that he exercised control south of the Tyne (from HSC).36 Simply assuming that the Scandinavian king in charge at York is automatically king of Northumbria is problematic; the best Irish and English sources emphasise his rule not of the Northumbrians, but of the Scandinavians living there and elsewhere. The relevant annal preserved in Roger of Wendover’s chronicle styles Rognvald ‘king of the Northumbrians from the Danish nation’ (Reginaldus rex Northanhumbrorum ex natione Danorum),37 and that in John of Worcester and Historia Regum ‘part 2’ 34 HSC, pp. 60–61 : c.22; ASC MS D, s.a. 926, in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : a Collaborative Edition. Vol. 6, MS D / A Semi-Diplomatic Edition with Introduction and Indices, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Woodbridge, 1996), p. 4; in one charter (Sawyer no. 548) King Eadred is named Ealdred, an example of this mistake. 35 Woolf, Pictland to Alba, pp. 163–65, discusses this. The relevant annals in John of Worcester (CJW, II, 386) and Roger of Wendover (Wendover, Chronica, I, 386) appear to substitute an Eadwulfing evicted from Bamburgh with the Eadwulfing at Eamotum: Ealdred is the name given by John and Ælfred by Roger (probably a scribal error for Ealdred, cf. Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series 57, 7 vols (1872–84), I, 447). William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum Anglorum / The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols (Oxford, 1998–99), I, 206–07: 131.3) uses a version of these annals but supplies the name Ealdwulf (Aldulfi) instead of Ealdred; as Woolf suggests, this Aldulf may be the same as the Adulf of Clonmacnoise if we allow for some corruption in either source; see also fn. 25. 36 C.E. Blunt, B. H. I. H. Stewart, and C.S.S. Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England : from Edward the Elder to Edgar's Reform (Oxford, 1987), p. 105; Wendover, Chronica, I, 386. 37 Wendover, Chronica, I, 384. simply have ‘king of the Danes’ (Regnaldus rex Danorum).38 While the contemporary authority of these entries cannot be established with certainly, neither would suggest the author(s) behind these entries believed that Rognvald was the Northumbrian king. Irish sources use similar terminology, and on his death Rognvald is styled ‘king of the light and dark Gaill’ rather than ‘northern English’.39 Most of these rulers probably ruled in Lincoln and in York from where the coinage seems to emanate, areas taken from the Northumbrian and Mercian kings; but in neither case does that mean the Northumbrian kingship was filled by them. The same logic can be extended to Rognvald’s successor Sigtrygg, and perhaps even Æthelstan. Northumbria seems to have continued as a rump kingdom like that of West-Saxon-dominated Mercia. If so, Eadwulfing kings of Northumbria do not need to be reconciled with the rulers of the Danelaw any more than their Mercian equivalents need to be reconciled with rulers of the ‘East Anglian’ Norse. That is not to say the Uí Ímair did not claim royal authority throughout Northumbria. The Uí Ímair’s sphere of overlordship was vast. Control of the ecclesiastical metropolis of Northumbria was surely enough to justify a claim to the title and to overlordship of the English further north, if for no other reason than to put raiding of their territory within the norms of military and political behaviour. Three English kings are known for certain to have followed Ælla directly on the Northumbrian throne: Ecgberht I, Ricsige, and Ecgberht II. Unlike the East Anglian kings, the evidence explicitly indicates that these men post-date the settlement of the Norse army in the kingdom in 876. Ecgberht II died in 878 if the dates in DPSA and Series Regum Northymbrensium (SRN) are to be trusted, though one annal of similar worth suggests he was still reigning in the 880s.40 The reigns of these kings would overlap with that of Halfdan, leader of the northern half of the Great Army. He died at least a year before Ecgberht II, politically secure enough in Britain to be campaigning in Ireland. After Ecgberht II, it is possible that Northumbria became like East Anglia, that leadership of the Scandinavian army and the traditional kingdom became interchangeable. This is certainly a very prevalent assumption in modern historiography. It is not an unfair one either, being supported to some extent by how they are referred to in some Anglo-Norman texts 38 Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 123, and CJW, II, 382. 39 One prominent interpretation is that ‘light’ (finn) and ‘dark’ (dub) are used metaphorically with Gall (‘Norseman’) to mean ‘old’ and ‘new’, ‘known’ and ‘unknown’. The Dubgaill were the Great Army and their descendants, both in Britain and Ireland; and thus the Finngaill would be descendants of the Norse communities resident in Ireland before the coming of the Great Army in the mid-ninth century; see A. Smyth, ‘The Black Foreigners of York and the White Foreigners of Dublin’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research, XIX (1974–7), 101–17, D. N. Dumville, ‘Old Dubliners and New Dubliners in Ireland and Britain: A Viking-Age Story’, in Medieval Dublin VI: Proceedings of the Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium 2004, ed. S. Duffy, Medieval Dublin Series 6 (Dublin, 2005), pp. 78–93; see also C. Downham, ‘“Hiberno- Norwegians” and “Anglo-Danes”: Anachronistic Ethnicities in Viking-Age England’, Medieval Scandinavia, XIX, 139–69. 40 Wendover, Chronica, I, 327; Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 111; for reign lengths in DPSA, see ibid., II, 377; and in SRN, ibid., II, 391; Historia Regum, ‘part 2’, s.a. 883, in what is possibly an interpolation derived from HSC (or its source), the writer indicates that Ecgberht II was alive 883 and afterwards, and it is claimed he ruled north of the Tyne simultaneously with Guthred (south of the Tyne); see Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 114; see also D. P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, rev. edn (2000), pp. 175, 239, fn. 34, who suggests amending the two (ii) year reign length to twelve (xii) on this basis. and even in tenth-century Southumbrian sources.41 Northumbrian king lists, reliable until the later ninth century, appear to suggest that Ecgberht II was succeeded by a certain ‘Guthred’ or ‘Cuthred’. This man appears to have ruled the successors of the post-Repton northern section of the Great Army, and was probably claimed as an antecessor if not a genealogical ancestor of the Uí Ímair.42 The accession of Guthred (Guthfrith) is described in detail by two potentially eleventh-century texts, Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis and HSC. The former goes out of its way to stress that Guthred’s election as king had the consent of both the English and the Scandinavians; both texts stress the ritual elements of the inauguration, that relics were used, and that it took place on a mound named Oswigesdune; in HSC an armlet of gold was placed on Guthred’s right hand: ‘and thus they … constitute him king’ (…cum toto exercitu super montem qui uocatur Oswigesdune et ibi pone in brachio eius dextero armillam auream, et sic eum omnes regem constituant).43 These details were important, because the successors of Cuthbert claimed all the land between the Tyne and Wear as a result of Guthred’s gift. The Donation of Guthred would not have been valid had he not been the ‘proper’ Northumbrian king. It would be foolish to believe the tendentious legalising claims of succeeding centuries, but we are not in a position to contradict the idea that Guthred was claimed to be a traditional Northumbrian monarch in the manner of Guthrum in East Anglia, at least in succeeding decades and at least south of the Tyne. The years after Guthred are the important ones as far as Eadwulf is concerned. Eadwulf flourished alongside Scandinavian kings based in Northumbria in the early tenth century. Place-name evidence indicates that Northumbrian Norse settlement was lighter, and perhaps non-existent, in the eastern regions between the Tyne and Forth.44 Multiple associations between the Eadwulfings and Bamburgh complement this picture geographically: the Eadwulfings operated primarily in the 41 For instance, Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 123, s.a. 920, as well as ASC MS D, in Whitelock, Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, p. 68: s.a., 927, on King Sigtrygg. 42 Hudson, Viking Pirates, p. 19, makes a good case for Guthred as being the father of the first two Ua Ímair kings, using an explicit statement in that regard made by Adam of Bremen, who claimed to have drawn upon material written in a lost ‘history of the English’ (in gestis Anglorum); for which see Adami Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum ex Recensione Lappenbergii, ed. G. H. Pertz, rev. edn (Hannover, 1876) , pp. 57–58, translation in History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. F. J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 70–71. 43 South, HSC, pp. 52–53: c.13; CMD, p. 524. 44 For Norse place-names in ‘English Northumbria’, and England in general, see L. Abrams and D. N. Parsons, ‘Place-Names and the History of Scandinavian Settlement in England’, in Land, Sea and Home: Proceedings of a Conference on Viking-Period Settlement, Cardiff, July 2001, ed. J. Hines, A. Lane, and M. Redknap, pp. 379–431; for ‘Scottish Northumbria’, see W. F. H. Nicolaisen, Scottish Place-Names (Edinburgh, 1976), pp. 109–55, and S. Taylor, ‘Scandinavians in Central Scotland: Bý-Place Names and their Context’, in Sagas, Saints and Settlements, ed. G. Williams and P. Bibire (Leiden, 2004), pp. 125–45, at p. 128. The general pattern is that, despite the prevalence of Gaelic in succeeding centuries, the former Northumbrian ‘west country’ from Ayrshire to Lancashire has a distribution intensity similar to (if lower than) that of County Durham, Yorkshire and the Southumbrian Danelaw, while the distribution in the more easterly regions between the Forth and the Tyne is extremely light. The general pattern is demonstrably regional, as illustrated by M. Townend, ‘Viking Age England as a Bilingual Society’, in Cultures in Contact: Scandinavian Settlement in England in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. D. M. Hadley and J. D. Richards (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 89–105 (esp. pp. 96–98), and it is not likely to be a coincidence that the Uí Ímair hold kingships in York and later the Rhins of Galloway but can only be found in the north-eastern region in the context of hostile military activity. Northumbrian regions outside Norse settlement. Historians have long recognised that this is no coincidence. Even if Guthred did have a consensual reign over both communities, it is likely to have been different in kind outside the Norse settlement zone, where the power and provision requirements of dependent Great Army settlers were absent.45 Unlike East Anglia, in Northumbria a significant portion of the native nobility retained its position. Numerous powerful English magnates besides the Eadwulfings are attested in the kingdom in later decades. Some of these, as far as the marginal evidence allows, appear be related to former Northumbrian rulers.46 The existence of such a powerbase explains why, when the Eadwulfings emerged as the predominant dynasty within this zone, they were able to take a significant role in the high politics of the insular world. Whether or not Eadwulf’s family subjugated the Norse kings in the south before 918, were subject to them, or ruled in opposition, the evidence does not say for certain. The arrival of Rognvald and the Uí Ímair in York in 918 did however spring the Eadwulfings into action, apparently forcing them to agree (or perhaps triggering) a high-risk alliance with Causantin mac Áeda, the king of Scotland. The resulting campaign was, as we know, unsuccessful, with Rognvald emerging as a plausible victor at the battle of Corbridge. Conflict between the Uí Ímair and the Eadwulfings probably also explains the attacks on Tyninghame and Lindisfarne by the Eboracenses in 941, 47 as well perhaps as Oswulf’s role in the death of the last Norse king in Northumbria, Eric—though Eric’s origin is uncertain.48 If DNPB is a reliable guide to the era, descent from Ælla was the basis for Eadwulfing regal authority in Northumbria. In legitimising such ambition, Ælla would have been the target of attacks by anyone aligned to Eadwulfing opponents. This would, perhaps, explain why Ælla came to be regarded as the rival of Ivar. Both characters would have functioned as proxies for the rivalries of their descendants, Ivar’s ‘bloodeagle’ execution of Ælla symbolizing the outcome of the feud as desired by the family’s sympathisers in the English Danelaw. Similarly, the legends of the atrocities committed by Ivar, in particular the length to which Abbo goes to emphasise Ivar’s individual role in the torture and killing of Saint Edmund, would have been 45 This may explain the coinage patterns too. Paying military followers in coin and simultaneously demanding tax in coinage is an effective way to provision one’s army and as a non-perishable medium of wealth can be used in ‘international’ trading systems to acquire goods, soldiers and courtiers. The Eadwulfings did not have the same need for coinage because they lacked such connections and could draw effectively on native resources through a pre-existing social system better suited for their purpose. 46 E.g. Arnold, Opera, II, 92, s.a. 901 for Osberht, and s.a. 902 for Brihtsige; see HSC, pp. 62–63 for Eadred son of Ricsige (and his two sons), and ibid., pp. 58–59 for Ælfred son of Brihtwulf. Due to similarity and the apparent rareness of its first element in Northumbria, it is possible that the Brehtsig whose obit in Historia Regum ‘part 1’ is placed s.a. 901 was a relation of HSC’s Ælfred son of Brihtwulf; the second element sige suggests affinity with one of the late ninth century Northumbrian kings, Ricsige, possibly himself the father of the above Eadred. 47 Arnold, Opera Omnia, II, 94; cf. Wendover, Chronica, I, 396. 48 Downham, Viking Kings, pp. 112–21, and references therein; Downham has successfully undermined the evidence for Erik’s connections with the dynasty who in succeeding centuries were claimed as Norway’s tenth-century rulers, but as yet no explicit proof has emerged indicating that he was part of Ivar’s dynasty; inference from names and chronology could suggest that he was the grandson of Sigtrygg through the latter’s son Harald (died 940). received by a tenth-century audience in southern England with Ivar’s descendants firmly in mind.49 APPENDIX: De Northumbria post Britannos Hyring fuit primus rex qui regnauit post Hyring was the first king who reigned in Britannos in Northehumbria. Nordhumbria Northumbria after the Britons. Northumbria est a magno flumine Hunb’ uocato a rege extends, and there derived its name, from the Hunorum Humber ibi uocata, usque ad great river Humber (called after Humber king mare Frisicum, quod nunc uocatur of the Huns), as far as the Frisian Sea, which Scotticum quia Anglos et Scottos diuidit. is now named the ‘Scottish [Sea]’ because it Mare Frisicum uocabatur antiquitus quia separates the English and the Scots. It was Fresones cum Danis sepe et creberrime called the ‘Frisian Sea’ in bygone years solebant ibi cum nauibus suis applicare, et because the Frisians along with the Danes postea, cum Scottis et Pictis, were accustomed often and very frequently to Nordhumbriam deuastare. Hec regio postea steer their ships there and subsequently, along diuersis occasionibus et uariis infortuniis with the Scots and Picti,50 to bring devastation multis modis diuisa fuit. Hec uero to Northumbria. This region was to be divided distributa fuit, non multo tempore post, in in many ways on diverse occasions and upon duabus regionibus: in Deira, uidelicet, et various misfortunes. Not long afterwards, it Bernicia. Deira enim est a predicto flumine was partitioned into two provinces: namely, Humber usque ad Tinam; in qua regnauit Deira and Bernicia. Deira extends from the sanctus rex et martyr Oswinus, cuius aforementioned river Humber as far as the corpus nunc requiescit apud Tinmoutham. Tyne; in which reigned the holy king and Bernicia uero est in qua sanctus rex et martyr Oswine, whose body now rests at martyr Oswaldus regnauit, uidelicet, a Tina Tynemouth. Bernicia is the region in which usque ad mare Scotie. Norhumbria deinde the holy king and martyr Oswald reigned, uocata fuit; aliquando ex Humber usque ad from the Tyne as far as the Sea of Scotland. It Tesam, aliquando ad Tinam, aliquando ad was thereafter called Northumbria; sometimes Twedam; nunc uero nichil nisi quantum est it extended from the Humber as far as the inter Tinam et Twedam. De hiis ista Tees, sometimes to the Tyne, sometimes to the sufficiunt. Tweed; now it is simply what lies between the Tyne and Tweed. That is sufficient regarding this matter. 49 The Passio seems to indicate that this account emanated from the court of King Æthelstan, whose enmity with Ivar’s descendants culminated most famously with the battle of Brunanburh; for Ivar’s role, see Abbo of Fleury, Passio Sancti Edmundi, pp. 18–21. Ivar’s subsequent dynastic importance should make the historian extremely suspicious of all literary attempts to assign Ivar a role in events they document: he is a figure our sources ‘know’ to have been important, and his absence from documents would have been noticed and, possibly, subject to ‘remedy’. This problem is further illustrated by the contradictory attempts by multiple writers to synchronise his death with historical events (e.g. Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 49–55, where some of these dates are discussed). 50 A twelfth- or thirteenth-century author would have understood Picti to mean the people of what is now south-western Scotland, called the Gall-Ghàidheil or ‘Galwegians’. Hyring igitur predictus genuit Wodnam The aforesaid Hyring begot King Woden; King regem; Wodna autem rex genuit Withglis Woden begot King Wihtgils; Wihtgils begot regem; Wythglis genuit Horse regem; King Horsa; King Horsa begot King Uppa; and Horse rex genuit Uppam regem; Uppa uero Uppa begot King Eppa; Eppa begot King genuit Eppam regem; Eppa genuit Ermering; King Ermering begot King Bernac; Ermeringem regem; Ermering rex genuit and King Bernac begot King Ida. These were the Bernac regem; Bernac autem rex genuit kings who reigned in the land of the Idam regem. Reges autem hii fuerunt qui Northumbrians before Ida, from the northern side ante Idam regem regnauerunt in terra of the river Humber, beyond the Sea of Norway. Northamhymbrorum ab aquilonari parte All these kings, from Hyring as far as King Ida, fluminis Humber, supra mare Norwegie. were either unknown to or omitted by all the Omnes enim [197v] isti reges, ab Hyring historians, and their gesta have either been burnt usque ad Idam regem, ab omnibus up in their own country or sent abroad. And Ida historiographis uel omissi uel ignorati sunt, begot King Æthelred; Æthelred begot King et eorum gesta siue in patria combusta siue Æthelfrith; Æthelfrith begot King Oswig; Oswig extra patriam delata sunt. Ida autem rex begot King Ecgfrith; Ecgfrith begot King genuit Edelredem regem; Edelred genuit Aldfrith; King Aldfrith begot King Ælla; and Edelferdum regem; Edelferd genuit Oswy Ælla begot Æthelthryth, his daughter. regem; Oswy genuit Egferdum regem; Egferd genuit Alfridum regem; Alfrid rex genuit Elle regem;51 Elle uero genuit Edeldredam, filiam suam. Ab Elle rege, omnes postea fuerunt From King Ælla, all afterwards were earls in comites in Nordhumbria. Edeldrida genuit Northumbria. Æthelthryth begot Earl Eadwulf; comitem Eadulfum; Eadulfus comes genuit Earl Eadwulf begot Earl Oswulf; Earl Oswulf Ossulfum comitem; Ossulf comes genuit begot Earl Ealdred; Earl Ealdred begot Earl Aldredum comitem; Aldredus comes Waltheof; Earl Waltheof begot Earl Uhtred; and genuit Waldeofum comitem; Waldeophus Earl Uhtred begot Earl Ealdred; Earl Ealdred comes genuit Uitredum comitem; Uitred begot Ælfflæd, his daughter, whom Siward the autem comes genuit Aldredum comitem; most strenuous of earls took as his wife, along Aldredus comes genuit Elfledam, filiam with the Northumbrian realm; and he begot from suam, quam duxit in uxorem Siwardus, her Waltheof, later earl. strenuissimus dux, cum regno Nordhumber; et genuit ex ea Walteofum, postea comitem. Sed post mortem ducis Siwardi, quia But after the death of Earl Siward, because his Waltheofus,filius eius adhuc paruulus erat, son Waltheof was still a young boy, his earldom datus est consulatus eius per sanctum was given by the holy King Edward to Tostig, Edwardum regem Tosti, filio Godwini son of Earl Godwine. In the 24th year of King consulis. Anno uero regis Edwardi .xxiiii., Edward, the Northumbrians caused his earl Nordhumberani Tosti consulem suum, qui Tostig, who had inflicted much death and multas eis cedes et clades ingesserat, a destruction upon them, to flee from the kingdom, regno fugauerunt, omnem familiam suam killing his whole household. And they set up interficientes. Et constituerunt Morcar, son of Earl Ælfgar of Chester, as earl Marscherum, filium Algari comitis Cestrie, over them, with the consent and permission of 51 In skipping from the early eighth century to the later ninth century, the author/compiler is exhibiting a tendency shared with early Anglo-Norman attempts to write northern English history. The same blind spot exists in CMD and HSC. super eos comitem, concessione et holy King Edward. In the second year of William permissione S. Eadwardi regis. Anno I, the aforesaid King William gave the secundo Willelmi regis Primi, dedit Northumbrian earldom to Earl Robert, but the predictus rex Willelmus consulatum men of the province slew him and 900 people Nordhumber Roberto comiti, sed with him. In the third year of King William, prouinciales eum et cum eo .d.cccc. Waltheof son of Earl Siward, whom we have homines occiderunt. Anno tertio Willelmi mentioned, with the king’s agreement, received regis, Waltheofus, filius Siwardi ducis, de the Northumbrian realm following the death of quo mentionem fecimus, cum rege the aforementioned Morcar. In the ninth year of concordatum est, accepto regno King William, Earl Radulf of East Anglia plotted Nordhumber post interfectionem Marcheri to expel the king from the realm, on the advice of comitis predicti. Anno .ix. Wilhelmi regis, Waltheof the aforementioned earl of Radulfus comes Estangel regem a regno Northumbria, and of Roger, son of William fitz expellere precogitauit, consilio Waltheofi Obsern, whose sister the said Earl Waltheof comitis Nordthehumbrie predicti, et married; and at that wedding this treachery was Rogeri, qui fuit filius Willelmi filii Osberti, discussed. The king, however, on his return to cuius sororem predictus Waltheofus consul England, cast his kinsman Earl Roger into prison; duxit; et in ipsis nuptiis hanc proditionem but he had Earl Waltheof beheaded at prolocuti sunt. Rex autem rediens in Winchester; and he was buried at Crowland, Angliam, Rogerum consulem, cognatum where the monastery of Saint Guthlac is held. suum, misit in carcerem; sed et Waltheofum consulem decollari fecit apud Wincester; et sepultus est apud Croulandum, ubi S. Gutlaci monasterium habetur. 52 Omnes isti predicti fuerunt reguli et duces, All of the above men were kinglets and earls, a principio gentis Anglorum in from the beginning of the English race in Nordhumbria; huius autem Northehumbrie Northumbria; and the capital of Northumbria is Ciuitas Eboracum caput est. York. 52 This section is based largely on Henry of Huntingdon; for which see Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. D. Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996), pp. 280–81: vi.24, pp. 396–99 : vi:31–34.