Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Documentary Evidence
- Part II Edgar before 549
- Part III Edgar, 959–975
- 6 The Women in Edgar's Life
- 7 Edgar, Albion and Insular Dominion
- 8 King Edgar and the Men of the Danelaw
- 9 The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar
- Part IV Edgar and the Monastic Revival
- Index
6 - The Women in Edgar's Life
from Part III - Edgar, 959–975
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Documentary Evidence
- Part II Edgar before 549
- Part III Edgar, 959–975
- 6 The Women in Edgar's Life
- 7 Edgar, Albion and Insular Dominion
- 8 King Edgar and the Men of the Danelaw
- 9 The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar
- Part IV Edgar and the Monastic Revival
- Index
Summary
[Cnut] was at Wilton one Pentecost, when, with his customary bloody-mindedness, he burst into a frightful peal of laughter against the virgin herself [St Edith]: he would never believe that the daughter of King Edgar was a saint, seeing that the king had surrendered himself to his vices and was a complete slave to his lusts, while he ruled his subjects more like a tyrant.
THIS story from William of Malmesbury neatly encapsulates some of the features and problems of studying King Edgar's relationships with women. There are many things that we do not know about the reign of Edgar, but we are relatively well-informed about some of the women who were significant to him. With a shortage of other narrative material, his relations with women were a means through which historians of the Middle Ages sought to elucidate aspects of his reign and find something of his elusive personality. The concentration in more recent years has been on the women themselves. The study of Edgar's kinswomen and wives has had a major role to play in Pauline Stafford's pioneering studies of the political and family roles of Anglo-Saxon royal women that are a major influence behind this paper. However, its main aim is to return to the issue of what we can learn about Edgar himself, and his shifting reputation, through the women associated with him.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Edgar, King of the English 959–975New Interpretations, pp. 143 - 157Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008