The Gaini were an Anglo-Saxon tribe which occupied part of the kingdom of

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , y ...

. The Gaini are only recorded in

Asser Asser (; ; died 909) was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his ...

's life of King

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bo ...

, written in 893, which stated that in 868, before he became king, Alfred married

Ealhswith Ealhswith or Ealswitha (died 5 December 902) was the wife of King Alfred the Great. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group. Her mother was Eadburh, a member o ...

, daughter of Æthelred, known as Mucel,

ealdorman Ealdorman (, ) was a term in Anglo-Saxon England which originally applied to a man of high status, including some of royal birth, whose authority was independent of the king. It evolved in meaning and in the eighth century was sometimes applied ...

of the Gaini. Mucel witnessed Mercian charters between 814 and 866, with two subscribing in the 830s and 840s. They may be father and son, with the later one being Ealhswith's father. The older was probably "Mucel son of Esne" recorded in a Mercian charter of 836. Esne attested Mercian charters in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Ealhswith's father attested two West Saxon charters in 868, the year his daughter married Alfred. Ealhswith's brother, Æthelwulf, was a sub-ealdorman under

Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians (or Ealdorman Æthelred of Mercia; died 911) became ruler of English Mercia shortly after the death or disappearance of its last king, Ceolwulf II in 879. Æthelred's rule was confined to the western half, as ea ...

at the end of the ninth century, controlling western and possibly central Mercia.

References

{{Heptarchy Peoples of Anglo-Saxon Mercia

See also

References