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Ealdormen
Ealdorman ( , ) ''''. was an office in the government of Anglo-Saxon England. During the 11th century, it evolved into the title of . Early use The word ''ealdorman'' was applied to high-ranking men. It was equated with several |
Government In Anglo-Saxon England
Government in Anglo-Saxon England covers English government during the Anglo-Saxon period from the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. See Government in medieval England for developments after 1066. Until the 9th century, England was divided into multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Each kingdom had its own laws and customs, but all shared a common basis in the Germanic legal tradition. In the 9th century, the Kingdom of Wessex absorbed the other kingdoms, creating the unified Kingdom of England. The king's primary responsibilities were to defend his people, dispense justice, and maintain order. Kings had extensive powers to make laws, mint coins, levy taxes, raise armies, regulate trade, and conduct diplomacy. The witan or royal council advised the king, and the Royal Households of the United Kingdom, royal household provided the administrative machinery of government. England was divided into ealdormanries led by ealdormen (later earls) appointed by the king. An eald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred The Great
Alfred the Great ( ; – 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 both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, King of Wessex, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, King of Wessex, Æthelberht and Æthelred I of Wessex, Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England. After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw, composed of Scandinavian York, the north-east Midlands and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom again ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - Ealdormen (British Library Cotton MS Tiberius A VI, Folio 4r)
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic peoples, Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman conquest of England, Norman Conquest. Although the details of Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, their early settlement and History of Anglo-Saxon England, political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the existing Romano-British culture. By 1066, most of the people of what is now England spoke Old English, and were considered English. Viking and Norman invasions chang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byrhtnoth
Byrhtnoth (), Ealdorman of Essex ( 931 - 11 August 991), died at the Battle of Maldon. His name is composed of the Old English language, Old English ''beorht'' (bright) and ''nōþ'' (courage). He is the subject of ''The Battle of Maldon'', an Old English poetry, Old English poem; J.R.R. Tolkien's short play in verse, ''The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son''; and a modern statue at Maldon, Essex, Maldon. Death in battle His death, while leading the Anglo-Saxon forces against the Vikings in 991, is the subject of the famous Old English poem ''The Battle of Maldon''. As presented there, his decision to allow the Vikings to move to a better position was fatal. He was said to stand well over six feet in height, and was around the age of sixty years at the Battle of Maldon, with "swan-white hair". Although it is believed that he fell early in the battle, some say that it took three men to kill him, one of them almost severing Byrhtnoth's arm in the process. He had previousl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ælfric Of Hampshire
Ælfric was Ealdorman of Hampshire from to 1016. Ælfric succeeded ealdorman Æthelmær to the county of Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ... and possibly Wiltshire in about 982. Ælfric was among the leading advisers of King Æthelred and was described by the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' as 'one of those in whom the king trusted most'; this is perhaps seen in 991 when, along with Æthelweard and Sigeric, he advised the king to pay the Danes for peace, which he did. Though one of the king's most trusted men, Ælfric in 992 defected to a Danish fleet that he was supposed to attack. Though his defecting ship was captured, he escaped. However, his family suffered for this act, as Æthelred had his son Ælfgar blinded the year after (993). Ælfric was at some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ælfhere, Ealdorman Of Mercia
Ælfhere (died in 983) was Ealdorman of Mercia. His family, along with those of Æthelstan Half-King and Æthelstan Rota, rose to greatness in the middle third of the 10th century. In the reign of Edward the Martyr, Ælfhere was a leader of the English Benedictine Reform#Later history, anti-monastic reaction and an ally of Edward's stepmother Queen Dowager Ælfthryth, Queen of England, Ælfthryth. After the killing of Edward by Ælfthryth's servants in 978, Ælfhere supported the new king, Ælfthryth's son Æthelred the Unready, and was the leading nobleman in the Kingdom of England until his death in 983. Origins and relations Ælfhere was a son of Ealhhelm (fl. 940–951) who had been one of the several ealdormen in Mercia in the reigns of Kings Edmund I of England, Edmund and Eadred of England, Eadred. The family was of Wessex origin, like most of those prominent in Mercia in the period, and may have been connected to the royal family, probably members of a collateral branch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Æthelmund
Æthelmund, an Anglo-Saxon noble, was Ealdorman of Hwicce in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. He was killed in 802 at the Battle of Kempsford by Ealdorman Weohstan and the Conscription#Medieval levies, levies of West Saxon Wiltshire.Williams, Smyth & Kirby, ''A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain'' (1991), pp. 24 Æthelmund's predecessors had been kings, but he was a subject of the King of Mercia. However, in one source, the 14th century ''Chronicon Vilodunense'' or Chronicle of Wilton Abbey, he is referred to as "King of the March". Hence he may have also assumed the title of like his predecessors. Family Æthelmund was the son of Ingeld, an Ealdorman from the reign of Æthelbald of Mercia. Æthelmund is believed to have married Ceolburh (d. 807), who is recorded by John of Worcester as an abbess of Berkeley, Gloucestershire. They had at least one son named Æthelric son of Æthelmund, Æthelric. Charter evidence Æthelmund is attested in several Mercian and Hwic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward The Elder
Edward the Elder (870s?17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold ætheling, Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred I. Alfred had succeeded Æthelred as king of Wessex in 871, and almost faced defeat against the Danish Vikings until his decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle, the Vikings still ruled Northumbria, Kingdom of East Anglia, East Anglia and eastern Mercia, leaving only Wessex and western Mercia under Anglo-Saxon control. In the early 880s Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, the ruler of western Mercia, accepted Alfred's lordship and married his daughter Æthelflæd, and around 886 Alfred adopted the new title King of the Anglo-Saxons as the ruler of all Anglo-Saxons not subject to D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odda, Ealdorman Of Devon
Odda, also known as Oddune,Harding p. 6 was a ninth-century ealdorman of Devon. He is known for his victory at the Battle of Cynwit in 878, where his West Saxon forces defeated a Viking army led by Ubba, brother of the Viking chiefs Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Ragnarsson. Biography Little is known of Odda's early life, but he became ealdorman of Devon sometime before 878, ultimately succeeding ''Karl'', or ''Ceorle'', the ealdorman in 851.Fisher p. 539 Throughout the 870s Odda's liege, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was engaged in constant war with the Vikings. They had begun their invasion of England in 865, and by Alfred's accession in 871 the Kingdom of Wessex was the only Anglo-Saxon realm opposing them.Savage p. 101 By 878 the conflict was going poorly for Alfred. In January of that year, the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of the people they killed, except ... King Alfred, and he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the Peerages in the United Kingdom, peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. The title originates in the Old English word , meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Old Norse, Scandinavian form ''jarl''. After the Norman Conquest, it became the equivalent of the continental count. In Scotland, it assimilated the concept of mormaer. Since the 1960s, earldoms have typically been created only for members of the British royal family, royal family. The last non-royal earldom, Earl of Stockton, was created in 1984 for Harold Macmillan, prime minister from 1957 to 1963. Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the ''hakushaku'' (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era. Et ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon Charters
Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in England which typically made a grant of land or recorded a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s: the oldest surviving charters granted land to the Church, but from the eighth century, surviving charters were increasingly used to grant land to lay people. The term ''charter'' covers a range of written legal documentation, including diplomas, writs and wills. A diploma was a royal charter that granted rights over land or other privileges by the king, whereas a writ was an instruction (or prohibition) by the king which may have contained evidence of rights or privileges. Diplomas were usually written on parchment in Latin, but often contained sections in the vernacular, describing the bounds of estates, which often correspond closely to modern parish boundaries. The writ was authenticated by a seal and gradually replaced the diploma as evidence of land tenure during the late An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shire Court
A shire court or shire moot was an Anglo-Saxon government institution, used to maintain law and order at a local level, and perform various administrative functions, including the collection of taxes for the central government. The system originated in Wessex, then expanded to other parts of England. Although retained after the 1066 Norman Conquest, it gradually lost its power, before the shire courts were formally abolished by the County Courts Act 1846. Purpose and membership Headed by an Earl, it was composed of local magnates, both secular and spiritual, who sat in council for the shire; also present was the county sheriff, or shire-reeve, who, after the conquest, became the king's representative. Thereafter it appears courts were headed by the local bishop, who determined the result, while the sheriff ensured it was carried out. Most legal issues, including theft or murder, were managed by tithing and hundred courts in the south, or wapentakes in the northern shires. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
