Partly inspired by Bernard Cornwell's novel, Sword of Kings, set in 924 A.D. (see my 21st December Blog), I am reading Sarah Foot's Ǣthelstan: The First King of England, in the Yale English Monarchs Series. Ǣthelstan reigned from 17 July 924 A.D. to 27 October 939 A.D., a period I knew virtually next to nothing about.
In her Epilogue, Foot included me, when she wrote, if one asked a group of educated Britons to name three Anglo-Saxon kings, few would now number Ǣthelstan among those they could recall. Alfred who burnt the cakes would top any list, followed swiftly by Harold (he who died with an arrow in the eye at the battle of Hastings) and then perhaps Ǣthelred the Unready, or Edward the Confessor. The Penguin Monarchs series, appear to agree, including Athelstan and Ethelred with Edward the Confessor (but, strangely, adding Cnut but not Alfred the Great, arguably because he was only ruler of Wessex). Sarah Foot clearly feels the magnitude of Ǣthelstan's achievements deserves greater respect, with the validity of his claim to be reckoned England's first monarch and ruler of the whole of Britain.
Coming from reading biographies of monarchs and statesmen, politicians and literary figures, where there is almost too much source material, I found it interesting to find out how a historian tackled the paucity of records. Sarah Foot, whose photograph on the back dust-wrapper flap shows an alarmingly youthful but keen-as-mustard face, has certainly done wonders. Her Prologue is a 'must read' for any pre-Medieval Historian, as she sets out the limitations of her task - Athelstan the man remains elusive - stating that structuring a coherent biography of a medieval subject...involves from the outset a greater degree of self-conscious construction and manipulation of material to fit artificial categories than might prove necessary for a better-attested person from a modern age. Thus, the tale is constructed around charters, grants of land, other administrative records, minting of coins and diplomatic exchanges with foreign kings and princes.
Foot begins by charting what is known about the end of Alfred's reign and the period under Ǣthelstan's father, Edward the Elder and the Conquest of the Danelaw. She then sketches in Ǣthelstan's conquest of Northumbria (had Bernard Cornwell's hero died then?!) and the acknowledgement of the Welsh princes and King Constantin of the Scots of his overlordship. A chapter on Family follows. Ǣthelstan was unusual in that he never married or had offspring. He surrounded himself at first with his younger (half) brothers and sisters and other nobles and thegns. Foot gives short shrift as to whether Ǣthelstan may have been homosexual. The chapter on the Court describes how peripatetic that was - the king needed to show himself to his subjects - a need still felt today. She gives credence to Cornwell's fiction, in that it is clear Athelstan did not have the same support in East Anglia and Wessex (especially Winchester) as he did in Mercia. His eldest half-brother, Ǣlfweard died, somewhat mysteriously, very soon after their father Edward's death - probably not as in the Cornwell novel, by a sword thrust into his vitals by Ǣthelred, but still mildly suspicious! It meant that Ǣthelred had conveniently lost the obstacle to winning over the Wessex contingent.
Other chapters on the Church which, unsurprisingly, showed the vital part played by the upper clergy in both home and diplomatic affairs. As Foot writes: These senior prelates collaborated with the king's ambitious plans to achieve the administrative and legal unification of his enlarged kingdom, ensuring that...he governed his united realm as a truly Christian monarch; and War portray as full a rounded picture as possible, given the constraints of source material. For the latter, there is a very useful Appendix on William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum Anglorum (Deed of the English Kings), showing how his writings played a major role in the assessment of Ǣthelstan and his reign.
Inevitably, there are plenty of sentences with possible, probable, might have, seems to have, we may imagine, may reasonably assume, and the ubiquitous perhaps. However, Foot has made a brave and, certainly, worthwhile and valuable stab at a rounded picture of the man in the context of his times. I concur in her final two sentences:
Brought out of the shadows that have too long obscured his memory, Ǣthelstan now stands revealed in more than one dimension. His is a life not merely to commemorate but also to celebrate.
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